Gajendra Singh Godara
Sep 26, 2025
12
mins read
The UNICEF Child Nutrition Report 2025 (titled Feeding Profit: How Food Environments Are Failing Children) provides a global analysis of child nutrition - undernutrition and emerging obesity trends - using data from over 190 countries. It underscores that nutrition is a fundamental development goal: SDG 2.2 aims to “end all forms of malnutrition by 2030”. In short, the report sounds an alarm that healthy growth is the bedrock of human potential and equity.
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Table of content
Persistent undernutrition: Despite improvements, India still has very high malnutrition.
NFHS-5 (2019-21) shows 35.5% of under-5 children are stunted (short for age),
19.3% are wasted (low weight-for-height), and 32.1% underweight.
India accounts for about one-third of the world’s stunted children (≈40.6 million).
These rates have declined from NFHS-4, but remain among the worst globally. (By contrast, richer states like Kerala/Tamil Nadu are well below 30%.)
Rising overweight/obesity: Globally and in India, childhood obesity is surging. The report notes that globally,
obesity has for the first time exceeded underweight among school-age children. In India, under-5 overweight has more than doubled in 15 years (from 1.5% in 2005-06 to 3.4% in 2019-21).
Among adolescents, overweight also jumped - in NFHS-5, 5.4% of girls and 6.6% of boys (10-19 years) are overweight, up 125-288% over a decade.
This shows that even as undernutrition persists, India now faces a dual burden.
Gender & age patterns: The report highlights gender and age differences. For instance, adolescent girls and boys saw large increases in overweight (girls 2.4→5.4%, boys 1.7→6.6%). Also, global data show boys are more likely stunted than girls.
Micronutrients: India also struggles with anemia and deficiencies (not fully covered by this report). Over 60% of under-5 children are anaemic (NFHS-5), a symptom of poor diets. UNICEF data underline that malnutrition is a rights violation - children need diverse, nutrient-rich foods to survive and thrive.
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Multiple factors underlie India’s nutrition crisis:
Household food insecurity & poor diets: Poverty forces many families to rely on cheap starchy staples (rice, wheat, maize) with little variety.
UNICEF calls this “child food poverty”: millions of children globally eat just 1-2 food groups daily.
In India too, surveys show large gaps in diet diversity - most young children eat few vegetables, fruits or animal proteins.
Even among non-poor families, children may be fed energy-rich but nutrient-poor snacks.
Maternal health and feeding practices: A malnourished mother is more likely to have a low-weight baby. Inadequate maternal nutrition and anemia (prevalent in Indian women) start the cycle. Once born, poor infant and young child feeding - delayed or no exclusive breastfeeding, and bland complementary foods - lead to stunting.
Water, sanitation and health: Unsafe water and poor sanitation cause repeated diarrhoea and infections, which inhibit nutrient absorption. UNICEF highlights that illnesses from WASH issues are “responsible for up to 50% of all child malnutrition”.
Social norms and gender: Social factors also play a role. Often women and girls eat last and least in the household, increasing anemia and malnutrition among them. Early marriage and adolescent motherhood further perpetuate undernutrition across generations.
Emerging dietary trends: On top of undernutrition drivers, new factors are emerging. Ultra-processed snacks and sugary drinks - often cheaper or more appealing - are displacing traditional foods in some diets. UNICEF warns that these unhealthy food environments, promoted by marketing, are pushing children toward obesity even as they may still lack micronutrients.
Protect Breastfeeding & Infant Feeding: Strictly enforce the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes to shield breastfeeding from unethical promotion and marketing.
Mandatory Legal Measures: Implement laws that regulate marketing to children, enforce front-of-pack labeling, and tax unhealthy foods to improve food environments.
Improve Access to Nutritious Foods: Redirect subsidies and strengthen support for affordable, locally accessible, nutritious foods and fortification programs.
Safeguard Policymaking: Ensure transparency and prevent ultra-processed food industry influence in child nutrition policymaking.
Promote Behaviour Change: Launch effective campaigns to raise awareness about healthy diets and the risks of ultra-processed foods for children.
Strengthen Social Protection: Expand food, cash, or voucher programs to make nutritious diets affordable and accessible for all vulnerable families.
The Child Nutrition Report 2025 highlights the following gaps:
Lack of Clear Definitions & Labelling: The FSSAI has not yet formally defined High Fat, Sugar, Salt (HFSS) or Ultra-Processed Foods (UPFs), making regulation and consumer guidance difficult. The star-based Indian Nutrition Rating system is misleading, often granting high scores even to unhealthy items, and traffic-light/warning labels were dropped due to industry lobbying.
Industry Influence & Weak Regulation: Food industry lobbying often shapes policymaking and stakeholder meetings, sidelining scientific input and public health priorities. Advertising regulations are weak; even under the Consumer Protection Act (2019), key nutritional disclosures and ad restrictions are not mandated or enforced.
Coverage, Delivery & Quality Gaps in Schemes: Flagship programs like ICDS and POSHAN Abhiyaan cover nearly 14 lakh Anganwadi Centres, but many lack staff, kitchens, or supplies, resulting in patchy nutrition service delivery and poor meal diversity. Programs still focus mainly on calories over micronutrient quality and rarely mandate eggs, fruits, or proteins.
Fragmented Approach & Weak Local Coordination: Nutrition, health, and WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) schemes often operate in silos, lacking the joint grassroots implementation needed for real impact. Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHNDs), expected to unite these services, fall short due to poor convergence and local engagement.
Monitoring, Data & Accountability Deficits: Systems like the Poshan Tracker provide weight data, but digital literacy issues and a lack of follow-up undercut their effectiveness. National dashboards seldom track food diversity, junk food exposure, or true delivery standards.
Neglect of Changing Nutrition Burden: Most Indian policies remain focused on undernutrition and child stunting, while the rise of childhood obesity and non-communicable diseases is virtually ignored. Mid-Day Meals feed over 11 crore schoolchildren, but quality/micronutrient checks and bans on sugary, ultra-processed foods are still absent.
To address the findings of the child nutrition report , experts suggest a multi-pronged strategy:
Strengthen maternal and early-child nutrition: Scale up antenatal care and breastfeeding support. Implement the WHO International Code fully to protect breastfeeding and appropriate complementary feeding. In practice, this means ensuring ASHA workers and Anganwadi staff counsel mothers on diet diversity, and supplementing IFA/Calcium to all pregnant women.
Transform food environments: Enforce strict regulations on food marketing to children. This includes banning junk-food sales in schools and taxing sugar-sweetened beverages. UNICEF specifically recommends taxes on unhealthy snacks and mandatory front-of-pack labeling. Simultaneously, governments should subsidize healthy local foods (millets, vegetables, fruits) to make them more affordable.
Integrate and reform programs: Improve ICDS/Poshan by focusing on quality of nutrition, not just quantity. Expand hot cooked meals at Anganwadis and in community kitchens. Encourage kitchen gardens and dairy/fishery links so Anganwadi rations include eggs, greens, and milk. Ensure Universal Health Coverage reaches remote areas (e.g. institutional delivery, vaccinations, growth monitoring).
Community participation and behaviour change: Invest in community mobilization - engage women’s groups, community influencers and schools in nutrition education. Tailor behavior-change campaigns to local contexts (for example, teaching mothers about iron-rich recipes). Promote women’s empowerment and nutrition literacy, as UNICEF notes that improved maternal education correlates with lower stunting.
Data & monitoring: Build robust tracking systems. Alongside anthropometry (height/weight), survey diet patterns and micronutrient status regularly. Use data to target high-burden districts and adaptive management.
Social protection: Strengthen safety nets. For instance, expand the Public Distribution System to include fortified cereals and pulses, and link conditional cash transfers to nutrition outcomes (following models like Brazil’s Bolsa Família).
Cross-sectoral convergence: Coordinate nutrition with sanitation (Clean India), education (mid-day meals, nutrition education), and agriculture (support nutritious crop production). India’s Poshan Abhiyaan 2.0 is a step toward integration, but real success requires alignment at the field level.
Tackle overweight proactively: Finally, India must treat childhood obesity as an urgent issue. This means developing national guidelines on diet/physical activity in schools, regulating fast-food outlets near schools, and adding nutrition education to curricula.
UPSC Previous Year Questions
Q. A company marketing food products advertises that its items do not contain trans-fats. What does this campaign signify to the customers? (2011)
The food products are not made out of hydrogenated oils.
The food products are not made out of animal fats/ oils.
The oils used are not likely to damage the cardiovascular health of the consumers.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Ans: (c)
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
Q. What is the Child Nutrition Report 2025?
A. UNICEF’s annual nutrition report (Feeding Profit) launched in September 2025. The global report examines stunting, wasting, obesity, unhealthy diets, and food environments affecting children and early childhood worldwide.
Q. Why do regions in India show disparities in child nutrition?
A. Child nutrition disparities arise from poverty, unequal services, and food access. Poor development indicators in Bihar, Jharkhand, UP contrast with healthier states, where nutritious foods and diverse diets improve early childhood outcomes.
Q. What role do food environments and corporate influence play in child nutrition?
A. Food environments drive unhealthy diets. Junk food, digital marketing, and breast milk substitutes replace healthy foods. The report focuses on how corporate practices undermine good nutrition and children’s right to a nutritious and diverse diet.
Q. What policy gaps does India face in child nutrition?
A. India’s nutrition policies remain calorie-focused. Despite programs like ICDS and Poshan Abhiyaan, gaps include weak regulation of unhealthy diets, lack of nutritious foods, and ineffective human development policies in middle income countries.
Conclusion
The Child Nutrition Report 2025 highlights that millions of children living in India and other developing countries continue to face child food poverty, stunted growth, and undernourishment due to unhealthy diets and poor food environments. Despite global progress, early childhood malnutrition persists, undermining good nutrition, healthy foods, and access to nutritious and diverse diets. The report emphasizes that breast milk substitutes, digital marketing, and ineffective human development policies exacerbate poor outcomes, increasing child mortality and diabetes risks. Policymakers must strengthen social protection, improve nutrition programs, and ensure positive impact on every child’s health and development
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