Guwahati: How bad is childhood obesity in India? That depends on where you look, and who you ask. According to the World Obesity Federation, India is expected to have over 27 million children with obesity by 2030, which represents over half of the children with obesity in the region, and one in 10 of all obese children globally.
But how bad is the situation in the Northeast? Not bad at all, as the chart below shows.
Urban Mizoram has the worst numbers, with 12.1% of children overweight. Manipur, however, has only 2.9% in urban areas. The number stands at 8% in urban Assam and 4.5% in rural Assam. In short, the situation is not even close to alarming in any of the states.
Now, one may feel like lack of childhood obesity in NE is a good thing, and yes, we agree. But what if the data below is more a case of children not really having enough to eat, as opposed to being spoiled for choice?
Let us not forget, India, according to the World Health Organization data, has one of the highest rates of anaemia among children aged 6-59 months with over 53% of children suffering from anaemia.
The situation is much worse in the Northeast. Nearly every state in Northeast has a staggeringly high number of anaemic children, which also means that unless things improve drastically they are likely to suffer in school too and suffer from a lack of concentration among other things. Assam emerges as the worst performing state in this category, with over 66% children (rural and urban combined) between 6 months and 59 months anaemic, while Meghalaya emerges the best performing state but even there, over 40% children (rural and urban combined) are anaemic.
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To put it simply, we are glad that obesity is not rampant in the Northeast, but truth be told, the children in our region are so malnourished that obesity is unlikely to become a major issue in the coming days.
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