Child Nutrition in India: Composite Index of Anthropometric Failures

Sripriya Reddy , Jawaharlal Nehru University

Nutrition is conventionally measured using the Anthropometric indices. But these indices often underestimate the under-nutrition levels. This paper therefore examines the loopholes in the conventional method and uses the Svedberg’s Composite Index of Anthropometric Failures (CIAF) to draw a more comprehensive method of calculating undernutrition; encompassing the various combinations of undernourishment. Data from the four rounds of National Family and Health Survey is used to analyze the trends of the nutrition levels in the country. The CIAF is calculated for the four rounds by grouping the three traditional indicators and a multi-nominal logistic regression is applied to see the association between CIAF and the background characteristics in all the rounds. One major finding of this study is that the existing methods underestimate the nutrition levels. Also, the association between the background characteristics and CIAF is same as that of between the traditional indices across all the rounds.

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 Presented in Session 5. Health & Mortality 1