The Catch-Up Growth in Stunted Children: Analysis of First and Second India Human Development Survey Data

CONTEXT: Change in stunting as the children grow older is rarely found in published literature. AIMS: The present paper compares the change in the prevalence of stunting among children as they grow from 0–4 years to 7–11 years. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: The present paper is a secondary analysis of India Human Development Survey-I (IHDS-I) (2005) and IHDS-II (2012) data for Kerala. METHODS AND MATERIALS: In total, 411 children of age 0–4 years and 390 children of age 7–11 years with anthropometric measurements were included in the present study, respectively, from IHDS-I and IHDS-II. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: The statistical analyses were done using SPSS 21.0. The prevalence of stunting was estimated. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed using the Pearson Chi-square test. RESULTS: The prevalence of stunting among children has been drastically reduced (50.4% to 20.3%) while growing older from 0–4 years to 7–11 years. CONCLUSIONS: More than half of the stunted children below 5 years regained normal growth, as they grow older.