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........

© The Statesman