Abstract
This chapter discusses the prevalence of underweight and overweight among women aged 15–49 in India. The analysis shows that while underweight among women has declined globally since the 2000s, it still affects a significant proportion of women in India. The mapping identifies districts with the highest prevalence of underweight, such as Jharkhand, Bihar, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, it also underlines the emergence of increased overweight or obesity in urban areas among people of better socioeconomic status in India.
Overall, the study’s findings highlight the considerable dual burden of malnutrition in India, affecting the population’s underprivileged and affluent sections. It emphasizes the importance of identifying pockets of nutritional deprivation within districts and prioritizing policy action. The study also highlights the need to sensitize women about risk factors and promote lifestyle changes to address the dual burden effectively.
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Notes
- 1.
The original NFHS dataset and the spatial analysis methodology are described in detail in Chap. 1.
- 2.
Women who were pregnant at the time of the survey or had given birth in the preceding 2 months are excluded from the sample.
- 3.
For details on the methods and the routine used, see Leckie and Charlton (2012).
- 4.
For a spatial analysis of nutrition following a slightly different procedure, see Striessnig and Bora (2020).
- 5.
Results in the following two paragraphs are based on the NFHS-4 district-level estimates.
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Kumar, R., Kumar, A., Rajpal, S., Joe, W. (2023). Underweight and Overweight Prevalence Among Indian Women. In: Guilmoto, C.Z. (eds) Atlas of Gender and Health Inequalities in India. Demographic Transformation and Socio-Economic Development, vol 16. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47847-5_2
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