In 2018, when POSHAN Abhiyaan was launched, the government had set a target to reduce stunting among children in India by at least 2% points each year. A stunted child is too short for his or her age as a result of chronic or recurrent malnutrition.
In 2016, 38.4% of children under five were stunted in India. As per this plan, the share should have fallen to 26.4% by 2022. During the launch, however, the government had set an even more ambitious target — to bring stunting down to 25% by 2022 — a goal it called ‘Mission 25 by 2022’. Seven years after the launch, Poshan Tracker data for June 2025 showed that 37% of children under five in India were stunted — barely 1% point lower than in 2016 as shown in the chart below.
“The fact that the needle has barely moved points to deeper systemic issues,” says Dr. Vandana Prasad, a community paediatrician and former member of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights. She calls persistent stunting “the tip of the iceberg of deprivation”.
Research shows that stunting is linked to a host of factors — from teenage pregnancies and poor diets of both the mother and the child to anaemia during pregnancy and inadequate breastfeeding in the early years. Evidence also points to associations with caesarean deliveries (C-section), children living in unsanitary conditions, and drinking unsafe water. Data further shows a strong link between stunting and the mother’s level of education.
“Stunting is often visible right at the time of birth. Nearly half of India’s stunted children are already small when they are born,” says Dr. Prasad, underscoring how deeply it is tied to maternal health.
Teen mothers are more likely to give birth to babies who struggle to grow. Experts say this is because a woman’s body is not ready for pregnancy at such a young age. Adolescent mothers are also less likely to be able to adequately care for their child after birth. Despite legal restrictions, child marriages have not been eradicated in India. Consequently, as of 2019-21, close to 7% of women aged 15-19 had begun childbearing in India.
Education plays a key role in breaking the cycle of stunting. Data from 2019-21 shows that nearly 46% of children born to mothers with no schooling were stunted, compared to only 26% of children whose mothers had 12 or more years of schooling. Mothers with higher levels of education are far more likely to access antenatal care, follow better nutrition practices, and delay early pregnancies, all of which improve child health outcomes.
C-sections have increased in India from 9% in 2005-06 to over 22% in 2021. While C-sections are not a direct cause of stunting, they can disrupt early breastfeeding practices. Babies delivered surgically often miss out on immediate breastfeeding, especially the first milk or colostrum, which contains all the nutrients an infant needs. “C-sections can directly affect the woman’s ability to initiate breastfeeding, because she herself is sick or may be isolated from the baby, who has been taken away to the SNCU (special newborn care units) or NICU (neonatal intensive care unit),” says Dr. Prasad.
While India has a strong tradition of breastfeeding, only 64% of babies under the age of six months are exclusively breastfed. Here, class divides play a serious role. “A teacher in a government school may get six months’ maternity leave to breastfeed. But a domestic worker is back to work within two weeks. How will she feed her child every two hours as required,” Dr. Prasad asks.
The quality of diet for both the mother and child is another key factor linked to stunting. Carbohydrate-heavy meals dominate most Indian households, especially among the poor. “In some Adivasi communities I have worked in, people eat mounds of rice because that is all they have access to. People eat dal once a week or even once a month,” says Dr. Prasad.
Only around 11% of Indian children under two years met the standard for a minimum acceptable diet in India, as of 2019-21. The minimum acceptable diet measures the share of children aged 6-23 months who receive both adequate dietary diversity and meal frequency (or, for non-breastfed children, at least two milk feeds along with diverse and frequent meals). While some States have introduced eggs in Anganwadi meals, access to protein and micronutrient-rich foods is limited.
Anaemia among mothers, closely tied to women’s nutrition, is another reason for stunting among children. In 2019-21, in India, nearly 57% of women aged 15-49 and 67% of children under the age of five were anaemic.
Sanitation deepens the disadvantage. Children exposed to open defecation and unsafe water are far more vulnerable to infections that sap their nutrition and stunt their growth. Open defecation, in particular, contaminates groundwater, which enters drinking supplies. This disrupts gut health by damaging the balance of good bacteria needed to absorb food. According to 2019-21 data, 19% of Indian households still practiced open defecation. Dr. Prasad explains, “There is a vicious cycle between infection and malnutrition. A malnourished child falls sick more often. When sick, the child eats less and absorbs less, which pushes the child further into malnourishment.”
The consequences stretch far beyond height. “Stunting has a correlation with poverty, less education, less employability, and weaker cognitive skills,” she says. “It locks families into an intergenerational cycle of deprivation.”
Published – August 21, 2025 08:00 am IST
