Early childhood growth and nutritional status in India: trends in five National Family Health Surveys spanning 1992 and 2021.

Background/objective: To evaluate the weight and height status of under-five children between 1992 and 2021 in relation to nutritional context.

Subjects/methods: The study is based on the lengths/heights and weights of children <5 years in five national surveys (n = 505,026). After evaluating normality of the distributions, heights, and weights were expressed as z-scores relative to the WHO reference. Nonparametric tests were used as the heights and weights did not have normal distributions.

Results: Heights and weights of boys and girls increased systematically, on average, across the five national surveys, indicating improvement in nutritional status over time. Nevertheless, median z-scores for height and weight relative to the WHO reference indicated the persistence of relatively poor nutritional status across the surveys.

Conclusions: The growth status of Indian children <5 years improved over three decades, indicating that national initiatives promoting child health had a positive impact. Unfortunately, the nutritional status of significant numbers of children has not sufficiently improved and merits further attention.