GANDHINAGAR: In response to questions on malnutrition in the state, the Gujarat government told the assembly on Wednesday that as of Dec 31, 2023, there were 5.70 lakh malnourished children in the state. Of these, 4.38 lakh children are underweight and 1.31 lakh have severe acute malnutrition, the government said.
Minister for women and child development Bhanu Babariya told the house that various measures are being taken to tackle the problem and Gujarat aims to be free of malnutrition.Opposition MLAs asked questions on the number of children suffering from malnutrition by district and sought to know what measures are being taken to check the problem. In response to a question, Babariya said there is a misconception among people that a child is free from malnutrition if given nutritious food for a day. “This is a vicious cycle and we need to understand it. Malnutrition is not only prevalent among the poor, but even persons from well-to-do families can suffer from malnutrition. Both, deficiency in nutrition and over nutrition (alpaposhan ane atiposhan) are types of malnutrition,” the minister told the house.
She added some of the reasons for deficiency in nutrition are the conditions under which the child was born, the mother’s health, socio-economic condition of families. “Today, there is a lack of information on what should be eaten and what should not be. It is the responsibility of all of us to create awareness about malnutrition,” she added.
Congress MLAs who spoke during question hour asked why the prevalence of malnutrition was so high in the state despite the government making a sizable budgetary allocation to address the issue.
The government said all children in anganwadis are being given two meals and fruit twice a week. All anganwadi children up to the age of 6 years are provided 100 ml of milk each, five days a week.
We also published the following articles recently

Severe malnutrition among kids down to 0.7% in Kashi
The proportion of severely acute malnourished (SAM) children in Varanasi has reduced from 13.7% to 0.77% under the 10 Point-Kashi Strategy approach. The strategy involved accurate tracking, nutritional programs, establishment of nutritional gardens, care units, and breastfeeding campaigns. The district also introduced mini-NRCs to treat more children.