Step into any Indian city and the paradox of plenty is hard to miss. From street stalls to fine dining, global fast-food chains to homegrown cafés, the options are limitless. Households can summon any cuisine to their doorsteps in minutes, and supermarket shelves are stacked high with choices for every budget and taste.

But beneath this abundance lies a sobering truth: the access and availability that should have translated into better nourishment and stronger health has instead fuelled a silent crisis. Rising obesity, diabetes, and hypertension now sit alongside widespread malnutrition and anaemia. The heart of the problem is this: we continue to equate more food, and more calories, with better nutrition, when what truly matters is the balance of what’s on our plates.

India today faces not just this double burden of malnutrition (undernutrition on one side and harmful excess on the other) but increasingly a triple burden that also includes hidden hunger from micronutrient deficiencies. The numbers are telling.

More than half of Indian women are anaemic, even as obesity among women has nearly doubled in the past 15 years. Rates among men have risen almost as sharply. Abdominal obesity, often overlooked by standard weight measures, is also spreading, particularly among women. These trends fuel a vicious cycle: poor diets weaken immunity and productivity, which in turn reduce incomes and reinforce poor food choices. Meanwhile, unhealthy diets and sedentary lifestyles are driving a surge in diabetes and cardiovascular disease, already responsible for most deaths in the country. Clearly, abundance has not translated into nourishment, and breaking this cycle means rethinking what we put on our plates.

Nutrition is not only about filling stomachs; it is about ensuring both variety and frequency of the right foods, including micronutrients, dietary fibre, and phytonutrients that........

© News18