GHI gets it wrong. Shorter Indian children doesn't mean it is because they sleep hungry. It’s more complex than that

Why are Indians of a shorter height on an average compared to people in sub-Saharan Africa, even though India is much richer both in terms of national gross domestic product (GDP) or even per capita GDP.

Why are children from India, on an average, shorter than those from Africa? Is it because Indian children remain hungrier than their African counterparts for want of food?

More specifically, why are Africans generally taller even if their income levels are lower and childhood mortality rates higher on a comparative scale with other countries? Clearly, it would be fallacious to correlate height with hunger, a point that Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton has underlined. “The relationship between population heights and income is inconsistent and unreliable, as is the relationship between income and health more generally,” Deaton wrote in his 2007 paper, Height, Health and Development.

Economic literature is rich with research on what is often described as the “Asian enigma” or sometimes even as the “Indian enigma”. This represents a paradox or a puzzle of sorts. Why are Indians of a shorter height on an average compared to people in sub-Saharan Africa, even though India is much richer both in terms of national gross domestic product (GDP) or even per capita GDP. Economist Dean Spears in his 2020 paper alludes to some evidence that sanitation or the lack of it probably could explain part of this paradox.

India’s Low Global Hunger Index Score

This has become relevant because the Global Hunger Index (GHI) has ranked India 111th out of 125 countries in its latest 2023 report. The index, released on October 12, also stated that India has the highest child-wasting rate in the world at 18.7 percent, reflecting acute undernutrition.

India ranked 107th out of 121 countries in the 2022 edition of the Global Hunger Index (GHI), a tool for comprehensively measuring and tracking hunger at global, regional, and national levels.

With a score of 28.7 in the Global Hunger Index-2023, India has a level of hunger that is serious, according to a report based on the index. India's neighbouring countries Pakistan (102nd), Bangladesh (81st), Nepal (69th) and Sri Lanka (60th) have fared better than it in the index.

Last year, India sent tens of thousands of tonnes of rice as food aid to beleaguered Sri Lanka as part of a multi-billion dollar support to the island nation that was grappling with a dire financial crisis amid plunging supplies of essentials, and skyrocketing prices.

Earlier this year, there were reports of more than 10 people dying in Pakistan's financial centre Karachi when hundreds of people jostled against each other causing a stampede in a rush for free food.

Ironically, the GHI places Sri Lanka and Pakistan ahead of India in its hunger rankings.

Each country’s GHI score is calculated based on a formula that combines four indicators that together capture the multidimensional nature of hunger. These include: Undernourishment (the share of the population whose caloric intake is insufficient; child stunting (the share of children under the age of five who have low height for their age, reflecting chronic undernutrition); child wasting (the share of children under the age of five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition); and child mortality (the share of children who die before their fifth birthday, reflecting in part the fatal mix of inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environments).

Flaws In The GHI Methodology

In essence, there are two fundamental flaws in this methodology. First is the conflation of the aspect of physical height with hunger. As Deaton, Spears and others have pointed out that the relationship, or rather the correlation, between physical stature, hunger and income is far more complex , and an “enigma”, than a straightforward one-on-one correspondence between two variables.  The sociologist Sonali Desai has also pointed out that child health may be related to poverty and food intake, “none of them is solely determined by hunger”

Second, is the collection and the methodology of data itself. GHI uses the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) used to estimate the proportion of undernourished (PoU) population. This is a metric developed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), using responses to eight questions, which are partly experiential too.

Sample these questions that are used to arrive at a quantitative marker on hunger. 1. You were worried you would not have enough food to eat? 2. You were unable to eat healthy and nutritious food? 3. You ate only a few kinds of foods? 4. You had to skip a meal? 5. You ate less than you thought you should? 6. Your household ran out of food? 7. You were hungry but did not eat? 8. You went without eating for a whole day?

These responses that are collected through a poll can have significant statistical biases. In 2021, Nobel Prize winning economist Abhijit Banerjee had flagged flaws in the GHI methodology. "I think they are essentially model-based. I don't think there is any survey that says anything ... We should not take those numbers (GHI) seriously, they put them out, but they have no idea where they are getting them," he had said in 2021. Banerjee said there was no on-ground survey by publishing agencies of the Global Hunger Report "This (GHI) is coming entirely from small surveys here and there. But the scaled surveys that we need have not happened, so we don't really know”.

The highest level of statistical and academic rigour should be non-negotiable while framing such indices. Hunger is too serious a matter.

Gaurav Choudhury is consulting editor, Network 18. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.