Public health nutrition aims to promote overall nutritional health and reduce nutrition-related illness in the population through various means, including health services, program development, and policy advocacy.
Public health nutrition is one of the important components of the Sustainable Development Goals post-2015. It is the key point for SDG 2: &lsquoZero Hunger&rsquo and SDG 3: &lsquoGood Health and Well-being&rsquo, and essential components for achieving many of the other SDG targets.
The COVID-19 pandemic posed an unprecedented global public health crisis, and India is no exception. Due to the pandemic, millions of children have faced various health issues, endangering both their short- and long-term health and well-being. In India, poverty, poor water, sanitation and hygiene, and food insecurity remained the major threat to public health. In addition, the county has been plagued by the triple burden of malnutrition, which includes passive micronutrient deficiencies, excessive dietary energy intake that causes obesity in one section of the population, and inadequate calorie intake that causes undernutrition in another section of the population.
Though several programmes and schemes exist to address the issue of poor health and nutrition in the country, the Indian government launched the National Nutrition Mission (NNM) in 2018 with challenging goals to eradicate malnutrition. Despite this effort, public health crisis like malnutrition in several forms and food insecurity remains grim across the Indian states. Moreover, the recently published national family health survey report (2019-21) indicates that a substantially higher rate of improvement is needed to achieve the global SDG targets by 2030. Against this backdrop, the &lsquosecond Annual Conclave on Public Health Nutrition&rsquo, reflecting on health and nutrition-related issues amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, will focus on pace and progress toward achieving the various targets of SDG Goal 2 &ldquoEnd hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture&rdquo and SDG Goal 3 &ldquoEnsure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages&rdquo.