This study uses the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data to estimate Seemingly Unrelated Regression (SUR) model for height-for-age (HAZ), weight-for-age (WAZ) and weight-for-height (WHZ) to understand how the determinants of intergenerational transmission, feeding and care practices, and the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) vary in their impact when these commonly used measures of child nutritional status are considered together in a systems framework. As expected mother’s height, BMI and anaemia levels are all highly important in explaining the variations with large impact of height on HAZ, of BMI on WAZ and of anaemia on WHZ. Initiation of breastfeeding within an hour of child’s birth, exclusive breastfeeding in the first six months and inclusion of protein rich diets for the older children has a large impact on HAZ, and so does access of daily food supplements from the ICDS by rural children. Other predictors such as wealth status, safe water access, sanitation and use of clean cooking fuel by the households are found to be strongly associated with all the indicators. The results from this study strengthen the evidence that though multiple determinants play a role in a child’s growth, the key factors are in the mother to child transmission and in quality of early child care of feeding habits and preventive and curative health care practices.
ArokiaswamyP. & PradhanJ. (2011). Measuring wealth-based health inequality among Indian children: The importance of equity vs efficiency. Journal of Health Policy and Planning, 26(5), 429–440.
2.
BanguraS. (2014). Fighting under nutrition and child mortality in Sierra Leone. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development, 13(5), 8187–8208.
3.
BeckerG. S. (1965). A theory of the allocation of time. The Economic Journal, 75(299), 493–517.
4.
BhalotraS. (2008). Sibling-linked data in the demographic and health surveys. Economic and Political Weekly, 43(48), 39–43.
5.
BhagowaliaP.ChenS. & MastersW. (2008, July27–29). The distribution of child’s nutritional status across countries and over time. Paper presented at American Agricultural Economics Association Meeting, No. 08–04, Orlando, Florida.
6.
BurchiF. (2010). Child nutrition in Mozambique in 2003: The role of mother’s schooling and nutrition knowledge. Economics and Human Biology, 8(3), 331–345.
7.
CAG (2012). Report of the comptroller and auditor general of India on performance audit of ICDS (Report No. 22 of 2012–13) Union Government, Ministry of Child and Development.
8.
CrookstonB. T.SchottW.CuetoS.DeardenK.A.EngleP.GeorgiadisA.LundeenE.A.PennyM.E.SteinA.D. & BehrmanJ.R. (2013). Postinfancy growth, schooling, and cognitive achievement: Young lives. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 98(6), 1555–1563.
9.
CurrieJ. & MorettiE. (2007). Biology as destiny? Short and long run determinants of intergenerational transmission of birth weight. Journal of Labor Economics, 25(2), 231–264.
10.
DeatonA. (2007). Height, health, and Development. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104(33), 13232–13237.
11.
DrorD. K. & AllenL. H. (2011). The importance of milk and other animal-source foods for children in low-income countries. Food and Nutrition Bulletin, 32(3), 227–243.
12.
DufloE.GreenstoneM. & HannaR. (2008). Cooking stoves, indoor air pollution and respiratory health in rural Orissa. Economic and Political Weekly, 43(32), 71–76.
13.
GaihaR.JhaR. & KulkarniV. S. (2010). Child undernutrition in India. Australia South Asia Research Centre (Working Paper No. 20/2010). Retrieved from https://ssrn.com/abstract=1734591 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1734591
14.
GoI (2015). Rapid Survey on Children, 2013–2014: India Factsheet. Provisional. Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. Retrieved from http://wcd.nic.in/issnip/National_Fact%20sheet_RSOC%20_02-07-2015.pdf
15.
GragnolatiM.BredenkampC.Das GuptaM.LeeY.-K. & ShekarM. (2006). ICDS and persistent undernutrition: Strategies to enhance the impact. Economic and Political Weekly, 41(12), 1193–1201.
16.
GriggsD.Stafford-SmithM.GaffneyO.RockströmJ.OhmanM. C.ShyamsundarP. & NobleI. (2013). Policy: Sustainable development goals for people and planet. Nature, 495(7441), 305–307.
17.
GrossmanM. (1972). On the concept of health capital and the demand for health. Journal of Political Economy, 80(2), 223–255.
18.
International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) (2007). National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 2005–06 (Vol. I, p. 273). Mumbai: IIPS.
19.
JainM. (2015). India’s struggle against malnutrition—Is the ICDS program the answer. World Development, 67(C), 72–89.
20.
JayachandranS. and PandeR. (2013). Choice not genes: Probable cause for the India–Africa child height gap. Economic and Political Weekly, 48(34), 77–79.
21.
KandpalE. (2010). An evaluation of the Indian Child Nutrition and Development Program. Population Association of America, 46.
22.
KanjilalB.MazumdarP. G.MukherjeeM. & RahmanM. H. (2010). Nutritional status of children in India: Household socio-economic condition as the contextual determinant. International Journal of Equity Health, 9(1), 19.
23.
MalhotraR. (2014). India public policy report 2014: Tackling poverty, hunger and malnutrition. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
24.
MartorellR. & YoungM. F. (2012). Patterns of stunting and wasting: Potential explanatory factors. Advances in Nutrition: An International Review Journal, 3(2), 227–233.
25.
MazumdarS. (2010). Determinants of inequality in child malnutrition in India: The poverty-undernutrition linkage. Asian Population Studies, 6(3), 307–333.
26.
MishraC. P. (2010). Strategic issues in child health. Indian Journal of Public Health, 54(2), 75.
27.
MoralesR.AguilarA. M. & CalzadillaA. (2004). Geography and culture matter for malnutrition in Bolivia. Economics and Human Biology, 2(3), 373–389.
28.
MosleyW. H. & ChenL. C. (1984). An analytical framework for the study of child survival in developing countriesPopulation and Development Review, 10, 25–45.
29.
NairM.ArianaP.OhumaE. O.GrayR.De StavolaB. & WebsterP. (2013). Effect of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) on malnutrition of infants in Rajasthan, India: a mixed methods study. PloS one, 8(9).
30.
OnisM. (2006). WHO Child Growth Standards based on length/height, weight and age. Acta Peadiatrica, 95(S450), 76–85.
31.
OsmaniS. & SenA. (2003). The hidden penalties of gender inequality: Fetal origins of ill-health. Economics and Human Biology, 1(1), 105–121.
32.
PanigrahiA. & DasS. C. (2014). Undernutrition and its correlates among children of 3–9 years of age residing in slum areas of Bhubaneswar, India. The Scientific World Journal. doi:10.1155/2014/719673
33.
ParikhJ.SmithK. & LaxmiV. (1999). Indoor air pollution: A reflection on gender bias. Economic and Political Weekly, 34(9), 539–544.
34.
Planning Commission (2011). Performance evaluation of cooked mid day meal (Program Evaluation Organization, PEO Report No. 202). New Delhi: Planning Commission, GOI.
35.
RamachandranP. & GopalanH. S. (2009). Undernutrition and risk of infections in preschool children. Indian Journal Medical Research, 130(5), 579–83.
36.
RuelM. T. & MenonP. (2002). Child feeding practices are associated with child nutritional status in Latin America: Innovative uses of the demographic and health surveys. The Journal of Nutrition, 132(6), 1180–1187.
37.
SpearsD. (2013). How much international variation in child height can sanitation explain (World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 6351). Washington DC, US: World Bank.
38.
SubramanianS. V.AckersonL. K.SmithG. D. & JohnN. A. (2009). Association of maternal height with child mortality, anthropometric failure, and anemia in India. JAMA, 301(16), 1691–1701.
39.
SullivanP. B. & GouletO. (2010). Growth faltering: How to catch up and quest. EuropeanJournal of Clinical Nutrition, 64(S1), 21–23.
40.
SvedbergP. (2007). Undernutrition overestimated. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 51(1), 5–36.
41.
VenkatramaniA. S. (2011). The intergenerational transmission of height: Evidence from rural Vietnam. Health Economics, 20(12), 1448–1467.
42.
VepaS.UmashankarV.BhavaniR. V. & ParasarR. (2014). Agriculture and child under-nutrition in India: A state level analysis (Research Monograph No.86/2014). Chennai: Madras School of Economics.
43.
ViswanathanB. (2014). Prevalence of undernutrition and evidence on interventions: Challenges for India (Research Monograph No.49/2014). Chennai: Madras School of Economics.
44.
Von GrebmerK.BernsteinJ.de WaalA.PrasaiN.YinS. & YohannesY. (2015). The concept of global hunger index. In IFPRI (Ed.), Global hunger index: Armed conflict and the challenge of hunger (Ch. 1, pp. 6–11). Washington DC, US: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
45.
ZellnerA. & HuangD.S. (1962). Further properties of efficient estimators for seemingly unrelated regression equations. International Economic Review, 3(3), 300–313.
