A fundamental tenet of determining a society’s healthiness states that an increase in income corresponds to better health and superior standards of living. However, a recent health report from the Public Health Foundation of India suggests it’s a lot more complicated than that.
The report, “Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases in India,” estimates that non-communicable diseases accounted for 53% of India’s overall mortality in 2005. These include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pulmonary diseases, cancers and mental health disorders, to name a few. The trend is alarmingly high in urban India and largely spread across younger age groups.
What is behind this? Stress, rapid urbanization, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet and the proliferation of fast food outlets – all phenomena associated with a higher standard of living in India. You can read more about the economics behind this in today’s Economics Journal.
As much as 29% of India’s population has inadequate physical activity levels, according to the report. About one third of Indian women and one quarter of Indian men have inadequate activity levels. This figure is exceptionally high in metropolitan area compared to rural areas where much of the population still engages in manual labor.
Speaking to India Real Time, public health expert Sailesh Mohan, one of the report’s authors, said that an increase in motorization, mechanization and sedentary lifestyles have been major contributors to the rise in diseases among the better-off. “Though urbanization promises advanced health care, self-discipline is the best cure for growing health ailments” he said.
The report states that high-income groups derive 32% of their energy intake from fats alone, compared with 17% in low-income groups. Perhaps no surprise, then, that 20% of India’s population is overweight and 4% obese.
A large number of the overweight and obese are based in states of high literacy and high per-capita income. Of these, Punjab, Kerala and Delhi top the list.
Indeed, Dr. D. Prabhakaran, a cardiologist and another of the report’s authors, claims that at this particular point in India’s development “the rural Indian has a healthier dietary profile than its urban counterpart.”
That’s because villagers, most of them engaged in agriculture, abide by the ancient practice of consuming what they produce. In contrast, the urban Indian splurges on eating out. Deep-fried foods, fast foods and excessive sugar and salt intake (attributed to the increased consumption of packaged foods) have taken their toll on the lives of the more privileged.
Furthermore, urban India comes up short in the consumption of fiber-rich foods like fruits and vegetables. “What is astonishing is that their consumption is way below World Health Organization’s prescribed elementary level” said Dr. Prabhakaran.
Indeed, the deteriorating health of India’s wealthier citizens creates a potentially disastrous scenario for the country because of the so-called “dual burden” of having to treat rising non-communicable or lifestyle-related diseases as well as chronic poverty-related problems like malnutrition and tuberculosis.
It is a topic that the WSJ explored as part of its Flawed Miracle series this summer and could place extraordinary pressure on India’s decrepit healthcare infrastructure.
At a more philosophical level, there is something fundamentally troubling about a nation where some of its citizens overeat hugely yet hundreds of millions of others don’t get enough to eat.
India is hardly alone in this, though. The World Disasters Report released last week in Delhi by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies focuses on what needs to be done to the global food system to prevent almost a billion people being hungry and malnourished. It also notes that more than 1 billion people are overweight or obese.
Said Bekele Geleta, the organization’s secretary general, in a statement: “If the free interplay of market forces has produced an outcome where 15% of humanity are hungry while 20% are overweight, something has gone wrong somewhere.”
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