What is India’s average height !?

The percentage of undernourished people in the population has dropped from 18.2% in 2000 to 14.8% in 2018. The child mortality rate has halved from 9.2% to 4.3%, while child stunting (Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median) has dropped from 54.2% to 38.4% over the same period.[2] According to the 2005-6 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3), 48% of Indian children under 5 and 45% of children under 3 were stunted (); one-third of the world’s stunted children live in India. [4] But why am I discussing the malnourished or stunted children? You will get a clear picture from below reasons.

It is well established that children who do not get adequate nutrition between the ages of 0-2 are shorter than they could have been (i.e. their genetic potential). There is also now strong evidence to show that lack of access to proper sanitation and the poor social and health status of women affects the nutritional status of children, thus leading to low heights[3]. Recent research has shown that there is a clear correlation between state domestic product and average height. [4] This might be the reason the average height is unequal in different states.

Economist Diane Coffey, a PhD candidate at the Office of Population Research at Princeton University says “height is in large part determined by net nutrition between conception and age two, and net nutrition is a combination of disease and diet quality and quantity. Just because a society has more state net domestic product does not mean that it has a better disease environment or better maternal and infant care practices — the things that really matter for height. That is why it is not surprising that there is not a perfect match between average heights and average income”[4]

While most economists, including Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, tended to focus on the impact of food consumption on stunting, recent work like that of Mr. Spears has suggested that the lack of sanitation, and more specifically the prevalence of open defecation, can also explain a significant part of the variation in height.[4]

In States like Bihar (48%) and Uttar Pradesh (46%), almost one in two children are stunted, while it is only one in five children in Kerala and Goa (20% each).[3]

North Eastern people are taller than the rest of the people might be due to genetics (?) or due to gender inequality large gap between male and female heights. Although each and every state has a different story. There needs to be more research in this area to determine the inequality of heights.

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