A new study says that while the average height of people across the world is increasing, the average height of Indians is actually falling.

The paper examines the trends in the heights of Indian men and women between the age groups of 15-25 and 26-50 based on the National Family and Health Surveys – and concludes that India’s indicators are actually getting worse.

This is a worrying situation. Height is one of the most basic indicators of nutrition as well as public health and is directly linked to a country’s standard of living. It also reflects social and economic factors such as income and caste. Thus a fall in average heights indicates India is regressing on public health as well as economic goals.

We believe, in the context of an overall increase in average heights worldwide the decline in average height of adults in India is alarming and demands an urgent enquiry,” write the authors of the paper.

Losing stature

The study, titled “Trends of adult height in India from 1998 to 2015: Evidence from the National Family and Health Survey”, by Krishna Kumar Choudhary, Sayan Das, and Prachinkumar Ghodajkar from the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University compared data from three NFHS rounds – NFHS-II (1998–’99), III (2005–’06), IV (2015–’16) – to look at changes in height over the years.

NFHS is carried out by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and is one of the foremost Indian sources to study public health and evaluate existing policies. The survey is representative of households across India at both the state and the national level. The latest NFHS-V survey (2019-’20) was conducted across 6 lakh households.

Source: The Scroll

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