Objective This study aims at understanding the important correlates of child undernutrition in India using a quantile regression approach. Design Cross-sectional study. Data Source The study utilizes the secondary data from the latest round of the National Family Health Survey (2019–2021) to assess the individual, maternal and household-level determinants of under-nutrition among Indian children aged 0–5 years. Participants The unit of analysis is children under the age of 5 years and the sample size is 224, 218. Outcome Variable The outcome measures of this study are stunting, wasting and underweight. Results Results from our study show that birth order and size of the child at birth have a statistically significant association with stunting, wasting and underweight. While currently breastfeeding is negatively associated with HAZ scores (below 50th quantile), maternal height is positively associated with HAZ, WAZ and WHZ scores in all quantiles. Mother’s age, body mass index and education level have significantly stronger association with HAZ and WHZ scores. Furthermore, children from richer and richest households are likely to have higher HAZ, WAZ, and WHZ scores compared to the children from poorest households. For instance, the WHZ scores increased from 0.15 in the 10th quantile among the poorest to 0.43 among the richest at the same quantile. Moreover, at the 90th percentile, this coefficient increased from 0.11 among the poorest to 0.46 among the richest. Conclusion It is crucial to acknowledge that to have healthy babies, we must have healthy mothers. Thus, interventions to address child nutrition in India should also focus on maternal health, education, increasing the women’s agency and women empowerment. The findings of the study suggest that concerted efforts addressing the manifold determinants of children’s nutritional status from the government, non-governmental organisations and civil societies will ensure bolstered nutritional outcomes for children in India.
Singh et al. (Fri,) studied this question.
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