Bhopal, Patna and Lucknow are in particularly bad shape.
Some of India’s major cities have worse rates of child malnutrition than rural India, an analysis of data from the National Family Health Survey shows.
The data shows that over a quarter of children under the age of five are stunted (low height for age) in all of India’s major state capitals, except in Kochi and Hyderabad. Bhopal has higher rates of child stunting than the rural Indian average, and Patna, Jaipur and Bhopal have worse levels of child stunting than Nigeria; in fact Delhi and Nigeria have nearly the same level of child stunting. Stunting is a key indicator of child malnutrition, and indicates that the child’s height for her age is more than two standard deviations lower than expected.
According to the data, over a quarter are classified as wasted (low weight for height) in Mumbai, Bengaluru, Lucknow and Ahmedabad. While 7.4 per cent of rural children are severely wasted, this proportion is far higher in several big cities including Bengaluru, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
Over 20 per cent of children under the age of five are underweight in all megacities except Kochi and Hyderabad. Bhopal and Patna have a higher proportion of children underweight than Sudan.
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