Nutrition should be a life-skill for our kids

Rajdeep Pathak

The Statesman

0
05.04.2026

A child today does not learn about food first from a classroom, a parent, or even a textbook. More often, the first lessons come from packaging, jingles, cartoon mascots, celebrity endorsements, delivery apps, and the glowing screens that turn snacks into status. Before a child understands what protein does, he may already know which chips are “cool.” Before they learn why water matters, they may have memorized the logo of a sugary drink. Recent data suggests a jarring disparity in the information ecosystem of our children.

For every one message they receive about hydration or balanced nutrition, they are bombarded with roughly 50 advertisements for ultra-processed foods (UPFs) high in fat, salt, and sugar. That is not a trivial cultural shift. It is a public health crisis disguised as ‘consumer freedom’. India today is living with what nutrition experts call a dual burden of malnutrition– persistent under-nutrition on one side, and rising overweight, obesity, and diet-related disease on the other. In many homes, these are no longer separate realities. One child may be undernourished, while another family member is already at risk of diabetes, fatty liver, or hypertension.

UNICEF India notes that poor nutrition in India is not simply about ‘too little’ food. Often it is also about unhealthy, low-diversity diets and micronutrient deficiencies. Good nutrition, it reminds us, is fundamental not only to survival but to learning, growth, and lifelong well-being. The World Health Organization has repeatedly warned that children remain heavily exposed to the marketing of foods high in saturated fats, sugars and salt, and that such marketing affects not only food preferences but purchase requests, dietary intake and even the norms children develop around food itself.

WHO’s 2023 guideline calls for stronger, mandatory protections because self-regulation has proved inadequate, especially in the digital era. (https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240075412). India has not been indifferent to this challenge. The country has expanded food support through programmes such as ‘PM POSHAN’, school meals, ‘POSHAN’ initiatives, anaemia reduction campaigns, and school health efforts. ‘PM POSHAN’ itself explicitly aims not only to improve attendance and retention but also to improve children’s nutritional levels, with convergence around micronutrients and school health.

As policymakers gathered at the 2026 Nutrition Conclave in Delhi on 13 March 2026, by ‘Nourishing Schools Foundation’, ‘Food Future Foundation’, and partners, focusing on behaviour change, child nutrition, and policy outcomes, a consensus emerged that was as much about pedagogy as it was about public health. The policy makers believed that India’s nutrition crisis can no longer b e solve d by fe e ding programmes alone. To combat a marketing machine that spends billions to shape a child’s palate, nutrition education must move from the fringes of so – called extra-curricular activities, to the very core of the school curriculum.

India is currently caught in a unique and dangerous demographic pincer movement. On one hand, the United Nations’ 2025 State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI) report highlights that India still grapples with the world’s highest rate of child wasting (18.7 per cent). On the other, the Economic Survey 2025-26 warns of an exploding childhood obesity epidemic, with over 3.3 crore children currently classified as obese, a figure projected to soar to 8.3 crore by 2035. This dual burden of malnutrition is no longer a tale of two Indias. Today, stunting and obesity often coexist within the same neighbourhoods, and sometimes the same households.

The root cause is frequently the same, which is a profound lack of ‘nutrition literacy’. We have expanded food access through monumental schemes like ‘PM Poshan’ and ‘Poshan Abhiyaan 2.0’, thereby ensuring millions receives a daily meal. But access without education is a half-measure. Providing a meal satisfies hunger for the afternoon, but teaching children why that meal matters protects them for a lifetime. On the other hand, a child may receive a nutritious meal in school and still spend the rest of the day aspiring to the brightly marketed foods that dominate television, neighbourhood shops, and smartphone feeds. This is where public policy often stops too early.

We have tried to feed the child, but not sufficiently to educate the chooser. That is why nutrition education (read literacy) must no longer be treated as an occasional awareness drive, a poster on a wall, or a forgettable chap ter b efore examinations. It must become part of how children learn to live. We must understand that nutrition is not merely about calories. It is about overall growth and development. Children form habits before they form ideologies. Their taste, appetite, reward systems and food routines are shaped long before adulthood.

If unhealthy consumption becomes normal in childhood, later correction becomes much harder. Schools therefore are not just places of instruction; they are one of the last democratic spaces where society can intervene before lifelong patterns settle in. Therefore, a nutrition-literate child does not simply identify carbohydrates, proteins and fats for marks. That child begins to ask practical questions like “why does a packet snack feel satisfying for ten minutes but leave me hungry again?” “Why does a meal of dal, rice and vegetables keep me fuller longer?” “Why do sugary drinks create bursts of energy followed by lethargy?” “Why is a colourful label not the same thing as a healthy product?” These are not elite questions.

They are survival questions for the twenty-first century. The case for schools is especially strong because schools are among the few institutions that still reach children across class, caste, region, and social background. Therefore, a well-designed nutrition curriculum can do what most health messaging fails to do. “Down to Earth” reports that the Indian government, guided by recommendations in the Economic Survey 2025-26 (released January 2026), is accelerating a shift in public health policy from merely ensuring food availability to regulating the consumption of unhealthy food through education and restriction.

Facing a rapid surge in ultra-processed food (UPF) consumption and childhood obesity, the policy focus is combining, what they call, a ‘marketing shield’ with an ‘educational sword’. (https://www.downtoearth.org.in/food/economic-surv ey-2026-flags-surge-in-ultra-processed-food-consump tion-recommends-higher-gst). Recognizing that marketing bans alone are insufficient, policymakers are pushing for mandatory nutrition education to enable children to navigate a world of processed goods. In this direction, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has already laid groundwork with the “Eat Right School” programme, which uses “Yellow Books” – activity books available in 11 languages to teach food safety and nutrition to students.

The goal is to move from theoretical knowledge to practical life skills, such as reading nutrition labels and making healthier food choices. But here lies the danger – if nutrition education is introduced badly, it will fail. Children do not need another dry, moralising chapter that reduces food to guilt, fear, or memorised diagrams, or be shamed about what is in their tiffin boxes. They need something much more intelligent, where they are practically taught how food fuels energy, growth, concentration and immunity, while helping them understand the everyday importance of protein, fibre, iron, calcium and hydration.

They need to be taught in creative ways what processed and ultra-processed foods mean in real life, how to read food labels, how advertising shapes cravings through colour and celebrity, and why traditional diets often hold valuable nutritional wisdom worth preserving. As we move toward the 2030 global nutrition targets, India has the opportunity to lead the world in school-based health interventions. By making nutrition education as fundamental as literacy and numeracy, we can ensure that the next generation isn’t just ‘fed,’ but truly nourished. Moreover, in an age where the marketplace speaks to children all day, the classroom cannot afford to whisper.

(The writer is Programme Executive, Gandhi Smriti and Darshan Samiti.)

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Nutrition should be a life-skill for our kids

Rajdeep Pathak

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