Global Nutrition Report, 2017

GNR 2017 is a peer-reviewed, independently produced annual publication on the state of the world’s nutrition. The first series was published in 2014 and latest edition was published in November, 2017.

Major Highlights

• Almost every country in the world now faces a serious nutrition related challenge, whether stemming from under-nutrition or obesity.
• In all 140 countries studied, the report found ‘significant burdens’ of three important forms of malnutrition:
  • childhood stunting, children too short for their age due to lack of nutrients
  • anaemia in women of reproductive age
  • overweight adult women

Key findings

• 2 billion of the world’s 7 billion people now overweight or obese
• Rates of under nutrition in children are decreasing, with recent gains in some countries. But global progress is not fast enough to meet internationally agreed nutrition goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target 2.2 to end all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
• There are Rising rates of anaemia in women of reproductive age with almost one in three women affected worldwide and no country on track to meet global targets
• Donor funding for nutrition rose by just two per cent in 2015. Funding needs to be ‘turbo charged’ and calls for a tripling of global investments in nutrition

India’s Position

38% of children under-5 are affected by stunting and 21% of under-5s are defined as ‘wasted’ or ‘severely wasted’. In India, 16 per cent of adult men and 22 per cent of adult women are overweight. Globally, 614 million women aged 15–49 years were affected by anaemia. India had the largest number of women impacted. 51 per cent women are anaemic. The rate of exclusive breastfeeding of infants under 6 months in India is 65%.