India’s hidden growth opportunity lies in better teen nutrition, say experts

India must treat adolescence as its second window of growth and invest urgently in nutrition education and healthy food systems to avert a future health and productivity crisis experts said at the 3rd International Conference on Public Health and Nutrition ICPHN 2025 here this weekThe conference was organised by Sukarya an NGO working on issues of maternal and child health and nutrition gender equality and womens empowermentProfessor K Srinath Reddy Chancellor of the Public Health Foundation of India said failure to address adolescent nutrition would lock in intergenerational poverty and poor health outcomesAdolescence offers a biological and social opportunity to reset health trajectories The choices young people make now what they eat and how active they are will decide Indias disease burden in 2047 he said calling for alignment between food agriculture and education policies and stronger regulation of ultraprocessed and highsugar foodsCiting National Family Health Survey NFHS5 data which showed that 56 per cent of adolescent girls are anaemic and nearly one in four adolescents is under or overweight Reddy warned that the double burden of malnutrition could undermine Indias demographic dividendPolicy must make the healthy choice the easy choice he addedDr Deepika Nayar Senior Health Nutrition and Population Specialist at the World Bank said adolescent health is both a moral and economic imperativeEvery dollar invested in adolescent health yields a tenfold return through higher productivity and lower disease burdenWe must scale up proven initiatives like WIFS and RKSK and integrate digital tools and community platforms for realtime nutrition monitoring she saidDr Supreet Kaur from Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition GAIN stressed that adolescent nutrition cannot be treated in isolation from broader foodsystem reformsOne in five deaths globally is linked to poor diets We need integrated strategies clear food labelling waste reduction and fiscal incentives for nutritious produce to reshape consumption behaviour she saidPreetu Mishra Nutrition Specialist at UNICEF India said Indias adolescents are facing a triple burden of undernutrition overnutrition and micronutrient deficienciesChildhood obesity has already overtaken underweight globally Without policy action we risk a generation suffering both stunting and lifestyle diseases she said urging frontofpack labels taxation of highfat salt and sugar foods and youthled nutrition literacy programmesDr Satvinder Kaur Associate Professor at UCSI University Malaysia offered a regional lensMalaysian adolescents eat enough protein but mostly from fried or processed foods Promoting diverse protein sources eggs fish soy and tempeh backed by school initiatives and sugar taxes has shown encouraging results she said suggesting India could adopt similar modelsDr Shweta Khandelwal Vice President Social and Economic Empowerment at IPE Global emphasised that adolescent nutrition must begin long before pregnancyWith 11 per cent of births in India still among adolescents preconception care and awareness must be embedded in every maternal health programme We need to move from seeing youth as beneficiaries to engaging them as cocreators of health solutions she saidDr Suman Chakrabarti Associate Research Fellow at International Food Policy Research Institute IFPRI said recent national data shows plateauing height trends and rising obesity among Indian adolescentsAdolescents are not growing taller but wider a worrying signal of hidden hunger and excess calories he saidUpdated age and genderdisaggregated data are critical for effective targeting said Dr Sujeet Ranjan Conference Chair and CEO of United Way DelhiNo single sector can solve this We need convergence health education agriculture and urban policy must talk to each other Only then can adolescent health become a national missionMeera Satpathy Founder and Chairperson of Sukarya said this year the focus has shifted to Adolescent Health Advancing wellbeing and nutrition bringing together global and local partners to safeguard the health rights and potential of young people of IndiaThrough our RMCHN Reproductive Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition adolescent health and gender equality programmes we will scale our proven models bringing care awareness and empowerment where they are needed the mostWe will integrate nutrition gender equality and digital innovation into every programme using technology so we can scale faster measure better and bridge the digital divide Satpathy saidThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever