Twitter
Advertisement

CHILD NUTRITION: Change in ‘category name’ lowers malnourished kids in BMC schools

According to the Praja Foundation, the BMC changed the terminology from 'malnourished' to 'underweight' without any reason provided and method of measurement.

Latest News
article-main
Students of the Saifiyah Burhaniyah Madrasa participate in a peace rally to spread the word of a hunger-free world, on the eve of World Food Day at Mazgaon, on Monday
FacebookTwitterWhatsappLinkedin

Change in terminology has drastically reduced the number of malnourished children in BMC schools. While in 2015-16, over 64,681 students were found malnourished in BMC school's health check-up, as per a Right To Information (RTI) response received by Praja Foundation, in 2016-17, the BMC stated that they found no malnourished child in BMC schools.

The drastic change in the number of malnourished children in BMC school is mainly because of the change in terminology used by BMC since 2016. From the year 2016, the BMC's public health department included malnourished children under the terminology of underweight children.

As per the data received from public health department under RTI for malnourished students found in BMC schools, the response stated that "No malnourished students found in MCGM Schools for 2016-17."

While according to the RTI response about the health check-up in BMC schools, over 73,112 students were found to be underweight in 2016-17 and 11,720 students were found to be underweight in 2017-18. Which means 84 per cent decrease than the previous year.


Dr Padmaja Keskar, executive officer of BMC's public health department was not available to comment on the topic.

"While the RTI data in 2015-16 showed 64,681 malnourished students. In an RTI filed in 2016-17 when the number of malnourished students was asked, the reply given by the official was there are no malnourished students found in BMC schools in 2016-2017. Which means that they have added the malnourished students under the category of underweight students. The BMC needs to explain why they changed the terminology without any reason," said Milind Mhaske, director of Praja Foundation.

According to the Praja Foundation, the BMC changed the terminology from 'malnourished' to 'underweight' without any reason provided and method of measurement.

Rajeshwari Chandrasekar, chief, Unicef Maharashtra, "Malnourishment can be of three types as per the definition in Unicef. These are underweight, stunting and wasting. The threat of death among children is more in the last two categories. Underweight is too thin for an age while stunting is too short for age and wasting is too thin for height. The ICDS looks at only underweight kids. With respect to the report on BMC school students, we have been working only in rural areas and not in urban areas for me to comment on the issue."

Find your daily dose of news & explainers in your WhatsApp. Stay updated, Stay informed-  Follow DNA on WhatsApp.
Advertisement

Live tv

Advertisement
Advertisement