UNICEF India - Advocacy for Healthy Diets: Nutrition Brief Series (October 2025) Urges Systemic Food Policy Reforms
SDG 2: Zero Hunger | SDG 5: Gender Equality
Institutions: Ministry of Women and Child Development | Ministry of Health and Family Welfare
UNICEF India’s Advocacy for Healthy Diets: Nutrition Brief Series (October 2025) provides a comprehensive analysis of the systemic flaws driving India’s triple burden of malnutrition. The briefs use national data (like NFHS-5 and CNNS) to highlight progress and persistent gaps in addressing these: undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, and rising overweight/obesity.
The five reports collectively highlight that diet quality, rather than quantity, is the central challenge. Only 11% of young children receive a minimum acceptable diet, and unequal food practices mean women and girls consistently eat the last and the least, perpetuating high rates of anaemia (affecting nearly 70% of children under five). Furthermore, the aggressive marketing and normalization of High Fat, Salt, and Sugar (HFSS) foods is accelerating the rise of overweight and obesity. The series stresses the irreversible damage caused by poor diets during the first 1,000 days of life and the lifelong consequences for women’s health, rights, and opportunities.
The findings demand an overhaul of nutritional interventions, urging deeper convergence and funding within the POSHAN Abhiyaan framework. It necessitates immediate, stringent regulatory reforms by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) to curb the growing availability and promotion of ultra-processed foods, linking the national nutrition mission directly to public health outcomes.
Five reports under Nutrition Brief Series are as follows:
1. Early Childhood Nutrition: The First 1000 Days
(Brief 1 titled “Promoting Healthy Diets for Young Children”)
This foundational report emphasizes that proper nutrition during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to two years of age) is the non-negotiable bedrock of lifelong health and India’s future human capital. It highlights that inadequate maternal and early childhood diets lead to irreversible cognitive and economic disadvantages. The brief uses data like NFHS-5 to show the critical gaps: nearly 70% of children under five are anaemic, and only around 11% receive a minimum acceptable diet. It advocates for strengthening policy, increasing awareness, and leveraging local food systems to ensure every child has a healthy start.
2. Women’s and Girls’ Diets: Rights, Health, and Opportunities
(Brief 2 titled “Adolescent Girls & Women’s Diets”)
This brief establishes nutrition as central to the rights, well-being, and opportunities of adolescent girls and women. It underscores that what women and girls eat directly impacts their health, learning outcomes, and future productivity. The report details India’s struggle with the triple burden of malnutrition in this demographic. It unpacks how deep-seated factors such as gender norms, time poverty, and unfavorable food environments significantly restrict women and girls from accessing the quality diets they need, particularly during critical phases like adolescence, pregnancy, and lactation.
3. Who Eats First? Unequal Food Practices in the Home
(Brief 3 titled “Women’s Right to Food: Women Eating Last and Least”)
Focusing on social norms, this brief examines how common mealtime practices within the home contribute to persistent nutrition inequality. It argues that the practice of women and girls consistently eating last and the least—after male members have eaten—subtly but powerfully restricts their access to adequate and nutritious food. This tradition, shaped by social norms and unequal decision-making power, results in a persistent gap in diet quality, ultimately undermining the effectiveness of nutrition programs designed to support women and girls.
4. Advocacy for Healthy Diets: Say No to Junk Food
(Brief 4 titled “Junk Food and the Normalisation of Unhealthy Diets”)
This report addresses the rising threat of non-communicable diseases by highlighting how High Fat, Salt, and Sugar (HFSS) foods, often ultra-processed and aggressively marketed, are becoming normalized in Indian diets. It notes that this “junk food” is rapidly replacing traditional, balanced diets in settings ranging from school tiffins to family meals. The brief explains that frequent consumption of these easily available and aggressively promoted foods contributes directly to rising rates of overweight, obesity, and early onset of NCDs across all age groups.
5. Diet Diversity: Beyond Calories for Quality Nutrition
(Brief 5 titled “Nutrition Matters: Diet Diversity”)
This brief makes the case for moving nutritional focus beyond mere calories to prioritizing diet diversity as the cornerstone of good health. It explains that a variety of foods is essential for physical growth, cognitive development, and building immunity. The report warns that diets dominated by staple grains and processed foods lead to widespread micronutrient deficiencies and rising rates of obesity. It argues that increasing dietary diversity is a key factor in building health resilience, enhancing equity, and addressing multiple forms of malnutrition simultaneously.
What is Triple Burden of Malnutrition? A term used to describe the coexistence of three major forms of poor nutrition: undernutrition (stunting, wasting, underweight), micronutrient deficiencies (”hidden hunger”), and overweight and obesity. Addressing all three simultaneously is crucial for India’s holistic health policy.
Follow the full reports here: Advocacy for Healthy Diets: Say No to Junk Food
Diet Diversity: Beyond Calories to Quality Nutrition
Who Eats First? Unequal Food Practices in the Home
Women’s and Girls’ Diets: Rights, Health, and Opportunities
Early Childhood Nutrition: The First 1000 Days