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A panel discussion organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)
The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) through its nutrition committee has worked actively across various sectors to improve and foster multisectoral dialogue and increase awareness about nutrition security and public health agenda. The 3rd Edition of the Nutrition Conclave, organized by CII held their second panel discussion on “Re-orienting Policy actions and Innovations towards creating a robust ecosystem to strengthen nutrition delivery”.
Vinita Bali, Chairperson, CII National Nutrition Committee, posed pertinent questions while providing her insights into the matter, “Unless the private sector, nutrition community, public health come together and engage in a dialogue with different perspectives but one shared objective which is how can we put our best resources together for the benefit of the people for whom these programs are being created. The only way to change the dialogue is to engage in the dialogue and sometimes these catalysts come from outside.”
Dr Purnima Menon, Senior Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute, spoke on the positive trends, seen from the empirical data, in the last couple years that have helped combat malnutrition in India, “In states like Bihar, Chattisgarh, Bengal, we have seen progress with investments in programs that reduced poverty, improved food security and tackled sanitation. There is an improvement in the coverage of health and nutrition interventions across all states but we are yet to see the kind of improvement we have been looking for.”
Dr Sheila Vir, Director, Public Health Nutrition and development Centre, spoke on the present nutrition scenario from a public health point of view, “When I look at the essential nutrition interventions which comprises mainly of breastfeeding, and complementary feeding, we have not done as well as nutrition sensitisation has done. We have to get really serious about complementary feeding if we want to reduce infantile malnutrition. We need a strong communication strategy.”
Dr Seema Puri, Associate Professor, Institute of Home Economics, University of Delhi, spoke on what factors should be included on the dashboard of nutrition to measure progress, “To get the mother to introduce the right foods in the six month to two-year period where much of the growth faltering occurs is absent. Along with this there is also the issue of the workforce. The informal sector does not give maternity leave, does not have any workplace support for feeding the infant. So those are also issues we need to look at. Complementary feeding is something we have to work on whether in terms of behaviour change or supporting the mother in feeding the child.”
Further, Dr Avula Laxmaiah, Scientist G and Head, Public Health, National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), spoke on what NIN is doing to fight malnutrition, “We have developed many intervention models which are not very expensive and doable. So the district-level models are available now. Industries can adopt one district, then we will have the plan on what to do. It is mainly built on multi-component health and nutrition education and we have achieved them when we implemented them in several districts and shown it to be successful. They can adopt these models and help and definitely we can succeed with these interventions.”
The fight against adult and infantile malnutrition is not an easy one. Simply having an “eat right plan” will not work. As experts and nutritionists suggest, the government, public health workers, doctors, nutrition community, and the people have to come together with a common goal and separate perspectives to work in tandem with the agenda of assuring greater nutrition security and reduce malnutrition.