Malnutrition is one of the pressing problems in India affecting the economic development of the country. Malnutrition is rampant in all the parts of the country being more in certain areas and with certain age groups.
A hungry man is a social liability. He cannot work, cannot learn, cannot build resistance to diseases and thus retards the economic and social development of the nation.
During the mid-thirties to the present stage, four distinct phases of nutrition programmes could be identified. These are presented in figure below.
Fig. Different phases of nutrition Programmes
In each phase, the concerned sector took the predominant role. Thus, in the first phase, nutrition programming was more or less the responsibility of the medical or health sector. In the second phase, food and agriculture sector took the leading role. In the third phase, the community development and in the present IV phase, all related sectors with social welfare as the nodal agency. The success or failures of each phase led to the strategy of the next phase.
Participants