UNICEF Nutritional needs of adolescents in India…….

From 10 to 19 years (as per WHO standards), a teen's body changes drastically. They enters into puberty and experiences many changes from physical as well as emotional. 

India is home to 243 million adolescents – children aged 10 to 19 years – the most adolescents of any country. Sadly, a large proportion of India’s adolescents are anaemic: 56 per cent of girls and 30 per cent of boys. Anaemia among adolescents adversely affects these young people’s growth, resistance to infections, cognitive development and work productivity.

In response to the problem, the national Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) launched a nationwide Weekly Iron and Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS) programme in January 2013. WIFS builds on 13 years of evidence-generation through pilots and phased scale-ups by UNICEF on the use of weekly iron and folic acid supplementation to address anaemia in adolescent girls in different Indian states.

The WIFS programme targets 130 million adolescent boys and girls and is implemented jointly by three ministries, Health, Education and Women and Child Development.

The services delivered under the scheme include:

1) weekly iron and folic acid supplementation;

2) bi-annual deworming; and

3) nutrition counselling about how to improve diet, prevent anaemia and minimize the potential side-effects of IFA supplementation and deworming.

Partnerships have also been formed with civil society organizations to broaden the range of services for out-of-school adolescents and support state governments in providing nutrition education, life skills and vocational training services to adolescents.