Bill Gates praises India on getting ‘A’ grade’ for solving malnutrition problem
New Delhi| Microsoft co-founder, billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has given India an “A” grade to focus on solving the problem of malnutrition. “India recognizes that some nutritional indicators are weaker than it expected”, Gates said in an interview to PTI. That kind of clarity and focus on it, I think, is very impressive”.
Bill Gates said that India is focusing more on this issue (malnutrition) than any other government. It’s using the public food system and the midday meal system to limit the use of fortified foods, but that’s still a big problem” “I will give India an A grade to focus on this problem”, he said. In response to a question on the occasion of the launch of the Gates Foundation’s Goalkeeper Report 2024, Gates said: “I think it will probably give itself a B rating for education, but it really intends to do even better” The annual report tracks progress based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Gates said there has been a lot of improvement in the understanding of malnutrition, adding that the Gates Foundation is the biggest funder there.
“Part of it is understanding the complex system of the human body’s gut, it involves a lot of bacteria”, he said. This is called microbiome. If there is a vitamin or protein deficiency, some children develop inflammation in their gut, so they can’t absorb the food they’re eating and they can’t grow” He said that a tragedy of malnutrition is how much a child loses in terms of his physical and mental abilities due to malnutrition at an early age. “We don’t have a very good measure of it”, he said. But we’re getting better at it.”
He said that eliminating or reducing malnutrition has two major benefits. Gates said, “The first is that a well-nourished child is much less likely to die, rather it is twice as low because they have to face various diseases like diarrhea or pneumonia in their early years; but the second thing, which is absolutely big, is that in those early years, if children are malnourished, they have shortcomings”, So you can’t recover.”
“If you don’t have full brain development at a young age or your full length and strength as you get older, it doesn’t matter if you eat enough, don’t grow extra inches in your length, don’t grow in strength, or your brain doesn’t grow”, he said He called it a lifetime’s worth of shortcomings. “India is a great example where, if we can reduce malnutrition, it literally helps promote meaningful economic growth”, said the Gates Foundation co-chair and board member.
In response to a question, Gates said that India can play an important role in this field. “This is where we’re testing on new methods like probiotics”, he said Gates said a lot will be learned in India over the next five years, providing insight into other programs globally. Gates said that it is great to see that more and more philanthropists are coming to India domestically, including people from the technology sector.
