To fight fat, Niti Aayog works on age-based nutrition strategy

New Delhi: The NITI Aayog is preparing an India-specific age-related nutrition strategy to combat the growing obesity crisis in the country, said people familiar with the matter.

Towards this, an age-based lifecycle nutrition strategy is being finalised with targeted interventions on discouraging, marketing and advertising of unhealthy foods and promoting healthy food, particularly to adolescents and children, a senior government official told ET.

There is a consensus at the highest echelons of the government that the rise in consumption of highly processed foods laden with sugar and fat, coupled with reduced physical activity and limited access to diverse foods exacerbate micronutrient deficiencies and overweight/obesity problems.


"If India needs to reap the gains of its demographic dividend, it is critical that its population's health parameters transition towards a balanced and diverse diet," the official said.

The new plan would include a monitoring and accountability framework with targets for reducing obesity across age groups and a focus on strong governance mechanisms and a whole of government approach to tackle the menace.

The official said Niti Aayog has started stakeholder consultations on the strategy document that will suggest measures to reduce obesity in the country across age groups. The policy think tank is expected to firm up its recommendations by the middle of this year.

PM Narendra Modi recently flagged the escalating issue of obesity terming it as the root cause of many diseases and urged people to cut down on edible oil consumption by 10% and exercise.

A recent Lancet study projected India to have a third of its population or 449 million people as obese by 2050 with 231 million women and 218 million men diagnosed as obese in the next 25 years.

As per the Global Nutrition Report 2022, India has shown limited progress towards achieving diet-related non-communicable disease targets. The report said 6.2% of adult (aged at least 18 years) women and 3.5% of adult men are obese while diabetes is estimated to affect 9.0% of adult women and 10.2% of adult men.