Are Indians eating healthy? This is one of the most polarising questions on the state of India’s economy and the fruits it has delivered for 1.4 billion Indians. On the one hand are statistics which claim a massive reduction in poverty and very high rates of growth. On the other hand, there are instances, such as during the pandemic, when the government announced 5 kg of extra food entitlements for as many as 800 million people, suggesting that even basic
- More than 40% Indians skipped either breakfast, lunch or dinnerThe HCES data asks a simple question to its respondents on the “number of meals usually taken in a day”. The data shows that 56% of the population had three meals a day while 43% just had two . A break-up by location and gender shows that while rural areas do better , there is not much of a difference between men and women when it comes to the number of meals. A comparison of the HCES 2022-23 data with the 2011-12 CES shows that this number has increased by about seven percentage points between two surveys. 43% Indians not having at least one meal, prima facie, looks like a bad state of affairs. To be sure, the HCES report does give some context on how to read these numbers and there are elements which could lead to these numbers being either under or overestimates. “A ‘meal’, as opposed to ‘snacks’, ‘nashta/tiffin’ or ‘high tea’, contains larger quantum and variety of food…The difference in quantity will therefore be the guiding factor for deciding whether the plate is to be labelled as a ‘meal’ or a ‘nashta’”, the report says, which brings in an element of undercounting of number of meals. Similarly, the report suggests that smaller parcels of food received by workers in multiple households ( such as domestic workers) could be counted as a one full meal taken outside, which could potentially overestimate the number of meals.
- And the share of persons who have three meals increases among the richThis is borne out by a simple disaggregation of the data by monthly per capita expenditure (MPCE). The share of persons who reported having three meals was 52% in the bottom decile of MPCE but increased to 63% in the top decile. A decile-wise comparison of the 2022-23 and 2011-12 consumer surveys shows that the share of persons having three meals a day has increased across economic classes with the increase being bigger for the richer segments of the population.
- There is a large difference in share of population eating three meals across statesThis difference is even bigger than the difference among different MPCE classes. Among 21 major states, the share of the population eating three meals varies from around 98% in Kerala and Tamil Nadu to just 31% in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Belonging to a rich or poor class does not change this number drastically for most states. For example, the share of population in the top MPCE decile consuming three meals a day in Gujarat and Rajasthan is lower than what this number is in Kerala and Tamil Nadu even in the lowest MPCE decile. State and class-wise data read together shows another counter-intuitive trend. In states such as Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and West Bengal, share of richer population consuming three meals is lower than the poorer population, a trend opposite to that seen at the national level.
Abhishek Jha is Assistant Editor-Data at Hindustan Times. He uses statistical programming to generate newsworthy insights from large datasets. He is part of the team that produces Number Theory, a daily data story feature of the paper’s print edition. Since March 2024, he has been writing Weather Bee, a weekly column for the Hindustan Times website. He is a chemical engineer by training, who specialises in stories related to weather, climate, and the environment. Jha has been at HT since 2018, where he offers data-driven perspective and analysis on politics, environment, weather, climate, economy and society. His work includes data coverage of elections in India and abroad, including the 2019 and 2024 Lok Sabha elections; the disasters and extreme weather resulting from changing climate, such as floods, droughts, heat waves, cold waves, and dwindling snow cap in the Himalayas; the factors that drive poor air quality in northern India; the changing patterns of land use; the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on labour market conditions; the changing pattern of consumer spending seen in the new consumer spending surveys; and social norms seen in the surveys such as the National Family Health Survey.
Roshan Kishore is the Data and Political Economy Editor at Hindustan Times. He heads the newsroom's data journalism team, which produces Number Theory, a daily data-driven feature for the print edition and the HT app. Number Theory uses data analysis and story-telling based on it to add value to the newsroom’s daily coverage by putting stories in a larger context on a range of issues, including politics, macroeconomy, markets, global affairs and climate. Under his leadership HT’s data journalism work has established itself as a niche product in Indian journalism and pushed the boundaries of marrying academic rigour with news sense and speed. Along with writing and editing data stories, he has also been writing a weekly political economy column called Terms of Trade for HT Premium. A trained economist with an MPhil degree from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Kishore has also been a visiting fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies of India (CASI) at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with his journalistic work, his writings have also appeared in journals such as the Economic and Political Weekly and working papers for CASI and UNESCAP.