Food of Fruition is the One with Apt Nutrition

Opinion

Food is only good as the nutritional value it feeds. One may eat for the sake of eating, which may curb the stomach’s temporary hunger but may not curb the body’s hunger - the hunger of nutrition. The nutrition from the food is preeminent as the food itself. And with the absence of adequate nutritional value in the food, in the long run, food consumption even turns futile, leading to a double burden of malnutrition. However, with the world around, suffering from widespread malnutrition, it suffices to consider it the living evidence of food’s lack in nutritional value when, for the fruition of sustainable healthy life, unhindered nutritious food is paramount. 2018 the Global Nutrition Report Fanzo, et al. [1] recognizes 150.8 million children stunted, 50.5 million children as wasted, and 38.3 million as overweight, whereas the count of overweight and obese adults remain as high as a 2.01billion.

The problem of the absence of food, wherever needed, needs immediate addressing. To ensure a continuous flow of food, especially in high malnutrition regions via food deficit, and in a country as big as India, a food supply channel or chain needs establishing. A chain not only approved but also established by determined and effective government initiation, thus enabling and facilitating an uninterrupted flow of nutritional food wherever the lack. The deficit can be observed by The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World, 2020’ report, which categorized 14% of India’s population as undernourished [2].

However, within the territory so huge, a hinged effort is likely to yield a better result. The supply could structure down from the center to the states, keeping in mind the human right to food and a life free of malnutrition with continuity and flow of nutritional food supply.

The widespread network of several NGOs can facilitate Opinion

the respective continuous supply of the nutritional food as per the demand or the deficit to help meet the growing concern of malnutrition. In this regard, some awareness campaigns and medical centers could further be established to highlight the aftereffects and provide remedies to its aftermaths, respectively. They can further contribute, either through the government’s chain or by forming their chain of supply.

The structural assessment over the root elementals of malnutrition needs to be prioritized for not sheer mild eradication but overall elimination of the said cause. Thus the flip side of malnutrition, extending beyond undernutrition and causing diseases like obesity and diabetes, needs redresser as well. A somewhat out of the box approach is needed to ensure nutritional intake over the section suffering from such issues. The spread of awareness is one way which, however, is yet to yield a satisfactory result. One approach could be the systemic reduction of non-nutritious food, especially in the region with critical concerns. In case of lack of reduction feasibility, the nutritional food’s awareness and significance can be demonstrated to encourage its consumption. With the non-nutritional food out of the way, an influx of nutritional food would establish a safe, secure, and healthy food environment.

However, howsoever seemingly promising they are, such methods are yet to render the fruitful result. Therefore a different and unique approach, such as the sequential substitution of diabetes, obesity, etc., resulting in food products with that of nutritional one, needs to be formulated and brought into practice. But with the hiked demand for junk foods, the feasible means could be a nutritional food mixed with preferred attributes such as the taste of junk food. Gradual and systemic supply of such food, especially with governmental intervention, could substitute the non- nutritional ones, thereby eliminating the factors causing malnutrition. These factors would then render a smooth pavement for nutritional food flow, especially throughout the major sections facing malnutrition.

In the absence of a nutritional diet, the likelihood of under-nutrition and over-nutrition, with its short-term and long-term consequences increases. The short-term consequences of inadequate diet availability and prolonged hunger may result in weight loss, rendering the body thin and lean, thus hampering the child’s health. The prolonged hunger is compensated by body fat. If not fulfilled via adequate nutrition, the body requirements are met by the body fat and then derived from the muscles and bones. This phenomenon makes the body susceptible to mild ailments such as dizziness, weakness, pain in different parts of the body, and critical issues such as electrolyte imbalance, having a long-term impact. The consequences of prolonged malnutrition, mostly resulting from over-nutrition caused by consumption of unhealthy and junk foods render long- lasting effects such as diabetes, thyroid, hepatomegaly, etc. With more lethal aftermath such as sequentially altered cellular metabolism, it gradually makes the body a magnet to diseases. Impaired body function-hindering even the most essential body functionalities and initial loss of body tissues [3]. They are followed by effects such as muscular dysfunction and altered immunity-increasing the risk of mild to severe infections.