Ensuring the Child’s Rights to Health & Nutrition: A Call for Access to Proper Food for Underprivileged Children

The right to health and nutrition is a fundamental human right that every person, regardless of gender, age, or socio-economic status, should have. This right is even more imperative for children since their physical growth and cognitive development depend on nutrition. Ensuring access to proper food and nutrition for underprivileged children who face socio-economic disparities becomes a paramount concern for society.

This article focuses on the significance of the child's rights to health and adequate nutrition, especially those in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. It suggests feasible methods to enhance child health and nutrition in India.

But before we begin, let us have some basic understanding of the right to health and nutrition.

What is the Right To Health & Nutrition?

The child's right to health and nutrition is a human right that is recognized by many international treaties and declarations.

Access to adequate nutrition is one of the essential elements of the right to health. Malnutrition, which is an aftermath of improper nutrition, may bear a destructive and lasting effect on a child's physical and cognitive advancement.

Ensuring that children have access to health and nutrition isn't just about fairness. It's also about building a strong community where kids grow up healthy and become capable adults.

Importance of Children's Health & Nutrition

Childhood is a crucial building phase. Proper nutrition during these early years is like a magic potion that lays the foundation for a healthy life. Malnutrition can mess with a child's growth, immunity, brain, and overall well-being.

For a child's wholesome development, a proper diet and primary healthcare are crucial. To avoid long-term and, in some circumstances, irreversible damage to a child's health, timely, regular, and appropriate intake of basic nourishment is required for all children. At CRY, we think that children's rights must be protected and that includes protecting children from starvation and bad health, regardless of their socio-economic status.

Malnutrition does not come alone. It can cause problems with thinking, weaken the body's defenses, slow down growth, and make it easier to get sick with other diseases. The long-term effect of malnutrition leads to the development of a vicious cycle of poverty, which passes down from one generation to the next. Malnourished children often face hurdles in education, making it challenging to break out of the poverty cycle.

Hence, children's rights to health and nutrition become more critical. It's an investment in the well-being and prosperity of our society.

Ways to Promote Child Health & Nutrition in India

Now we are aware of the child's right to health and nutrition and its importance. Further, let's understand some practical ways to promote child health and nutrition in India.

Education & Awareness

Focusing on providing education & social awareness is one of the critical strategies to promote child health and nutrition. It begins with informing parents, caregivers, and communities about the significance of proper nutrition for children's growth. 

For example, the government and various NGOs such as CRY India team up to organise awareness campaigns, donate materials for self-education and teach practical skills, including good nutrition, hygiene, and a healthy lifestyle.

Immunization

Immunization is an integral aspect of promoting a child's right to health. Vaccines protect children from deadly diseases such as polio and contribute to their overall well-being. Government authorities and NGOs should work together to ensure that underprivileged children receive timely and comprehensive immunizations. This not only prevents diseases but also enhances the resilience of children.

Supportive parenting

Supportive parents and caregivers are crucial for ensuring proper child health and nutrition. Empowering them with resources like nutritional counselling, parenting workshops as well as healthcare services will help them to make better decisions about their children's overall health. Additionally, promoting gender equality and women's empowerment is essential, as mothers play a crucial role in shaping their children's health.

Collaborate with NGOs

NGOs are critical for improving the health and nutrition needs of underprivileged children. By teaming up with the government, NGOs can extend their reach, run community-based programs, distribute nutritious food supplements, and provide healthcare services that the government cannot reach. Collaboration with NGOs, in turn, introduces new resources, ideas, and inventive decisions. 

CRY India is an Indian non-profit organisation that works towards ensuring children's rights and supporting underprivileged and marginalised children in India. We work tirelessly to improve the health and nutritional status of underprivileged children by providing access to healthcare services, conducting health camps, and promoting awareness about healthy practices.

Eradicate malnutrition

The nutrition received in the first 1000 days of children’s lives is crucial. It helps in their physical, mental and cognitive development but the reality is that 89% of children between 6-23 months DO NOT get an adequate diet in India (Source: NFHS-5). They are deprived of nutritional care due to poverty, lack of resources and awareness, which makes them vulnerable to malnutrition.

The stronger a child's health is, the more likely they are to reach their full potential and prosper in the future. However, malnutrition in India is responsible for two out of every three child deaths under the age of five (Source: UNICEF 2019). Many groups in India have been affected by the pandemic, particularly children from marginalized communities. The long-term effects of the coronavirus outbreak have worsened the situation with school closures leading to the suspension of the school midday meal and the loss of family income etc.

Solving the malnutrition issue is a complex task that requires a proactive strategy that addresses both acute and underlying causes. Running comprehensive nutrition programs, including distribution of nutritious food, promotion of breastfeeding, and provision of clean water and sanitation facilities, are the key measures.

Routine monitoring and evaluation of nutrition status, along with specific interventions, can be a great technique to identify malnutrition at the early stages. For example, various NGOs such as CRY India actively encourage and invest in social welfare programs that help families and communities break the cycle of malnutrition. We believe that boosting families' economic well-being is critical to the long-term prevention of childhood malnutrition.

How Does CRY India Works To Reduce Malnutrition?

Children have suffered enough but this must stop as they require regular and proper monitoring and care, timely immunizations and adequate nutrition; instead of hunger, health problems, and varied forms of child abuse. At 48.2 million, India already has the highest number of malnourished children in the world. To help improve this scenario, CRY’s on-ground team has been focusing on the below area:

• To reduce infant/child mortality, we have been regularly monitoring the health of children.

• Vaccinating children on a regular basis to prevent exposure to other dangerous diseases is a priority that should not be overlooked.

•  Providing lactating and pregnant moms with timely care.

• The CRY teams have been partnering with local government systems, village leaders, and healthcare workers to join hands and work together to protect the health of children.

Our health and nutrition programs take a proactive and responsive approach to decrease India’s infant mortality rate (IMR), the child mortality rate (CMR), and the maternal mortality rate (MMR).

Your donation to CRY, India’s most trusted NGO, can help make a difference. You can also avail an income tax exemption on your generous contribution. Support CRY now!

Final Thoughts

Ensuring the right to health and nutrition for the children of socially underprivileged communities should not be an ambition; it is a mission that we must all engage in simultaneously. It's about realising the significance of this right, not just in words but in action.

Through education, immunisation, supporting parenting, collaborating with NGOs, and eradicating malnutrition, we are not only just ticking boxes. Instead, we are developing a roadmap where every child, regardless of where they are coming from, is allowed to open their wings and fly.

Providing these children with resources isn't just monetarily beneficial but also serves as an investment into developing the country's future.

With our united endeavours, we can create a world that's conducive to every child's growth, enabling them to become self-reliant, emotionally healthy individuals.