Delhi, Punjab top woman obesity list

According to a new survey, Punjab and Delhi, which are among states with the lowest sex ratio, have the highest number of obese women in India, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Oct 22, 2007, 02:07:18 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Punjab and Delhi, which are among states with the lowest sex ratio, have the highest number of obese women in India, reveals a new government report.

“Women in India, 2007”, compiled by the National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development (NIPCD), say that 34 per cent of women in Delhi and 37.5 per cent in Punjab are obese — the highest for any state in India. These figures are based on a study on International Institute of Population Studies in 2006.

The sex ratio in Delhi in 2001 was 865 for 1,000 boys and 820 in Punjab. But, according to the Women and Child Development Ministry, it is an indication that if the girl is born, the families normally take good care of them, even though it may not be as good as boys.

Besides these two states, only Kerala has more than 30 per cent obese women. “The figures are a clear indication that health of women is better in healthier states,” said an official.

The contrast in the health of Indian women shows up when female obesity in these three states is compared with the national average of 14 per cent or that of poorer states like Bihar (5.3 per cent), Jharkhand (5.6 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (8.6 per cent) and Chhattisgarh (6.7).

While in states like Delhi and Punjab only about 11 per cent women are malnourished, the figure is as high as 43 per cent in Bihar, 42 per cent in Jharkhand and 40 per cent in Orissa. How healthy are Delhi and Punjab women can be gauged from the fact that only Sikkim had better figures.

NIPCD also raised question mark over the government-run public distribution system, which provides food at subsidised rates to the poor, but has failed to deliver.

The data also gives an insight in the preference of children among Indian women. About 38 per cent having two girls want another child, while only 17 per cent with two boys want another child. For women with a son and a daughter, the figure is as low as 11 per cent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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