3 min readMar 28, 2026 06:24 AM IST
First published on: Mar 28, 2026 at 06:24 AM IST
Also by Harshita Chari
For decades, India’s nutrition crisis was defined by hunger. That is no longer the full story. India is still fighting hunger, and also becoming increasingly overweight. Undernutrition, driven by poverty, limited access to services and socio-economic constraints, has shaped how malnutrition is understood in India. This dominant focus has left another form of malnutrition relatively neglected.
Overweight and obesity are rising rapidly across India. Among children, prevalence has increased by over 120 per cent in the past 15 years. This trend intensifies during adolescence, typically the most physically active stage of life, with a 125 per cent rise in overweight among girls and a nearly 300 per cent rise among boys. This carries into adulthood — nearly one in four individuals aged 15-54 years are now overweight or obese, with an increase of 91 per cent among women and 146 per cent among men from 2005-06 to 2019-21. The pattern persists in later life, with 40 per cent of adults aged 45 and above observed to be overweight or obese.
This rise reflects deeper changes in India’s food and diet, lifestyle and activity patterns. Ultra-processed and calorie-dense foods are widely available and accessible, often at low cost. In contrast, the healthier and nutritious alternatives are relatively expensive and less accessible. As a result, unhealthy calories are often cheaper and easier to obtain than nutritious food.
The relationship between income and diet further reinforces these patterns. While the poorest often rely on staple-based diets that lack diversity and contribute to undernutrition, rising incomes do not automatically lead to better nutrition. Nutritional awareness, where it exists, is often uneven, and does not necessarily translate into practice. Healthier choices frequently require both access and affordability. Among lower- and middle-income groups, dietary shifts are often toward cheap, processed and calorie-dense foods. The result is a dual burden: Undernutrition driven by inadequacy, and obesity driven by excess.
At the same time, work and daily life have become sedentary, shaped by urbanisation, changing work patterns and screen-based routines. Obesity is no longer just a nutritional issue, it is a major driver of India’s growing burden of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease, placing increasing pressure on the healthcare system. As India undergoes demographic and epidemiological transition and life expectancy rises, the dietary and lifestyle pattern among the younger population today will shape the morbidity profile of India’s ageing population tomorrow. Without timely intervention, obesity will continue to accelerate the shift towards chronic disease, increasing both the health and economic burden on individuals and the state.
India’s nutrition policy framework has historically been focused on addressing hunger and undernutrition. Programmes such as Integrated Child Development Services and POSHAN Abhiyaan have built a response to child undernutrition. Yet, the coexistence of undernutrition and rising obesity reflects a double burden of malnutrition. There is still no comparable, large-scale focus on obesity prevention. A nutrition system designed for scarcity can no longer afford to ignore excess.
Radkar, a demographer-statistician, is former professor, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Chari is a population researcher with expertise in survey research and data analysis
