India's obesity crisis: Reorienting food policies can address the problem

Growing prosperity, urbanisation, and sedentary lifestyles are out of sync with Indian cuisine, undoubtedly among the world's most delicious but traditionally suited for manual work

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s warning against rising obesity in India highlights a long ignored health crisis. He quoted a recent study published by British medical journal Lancet predicting that 440 million Indians would be obese by 2050. On World Obesity Day, on March 4, Lancet stated approximately 80 million Indians were obese, with 10 million falling in the age cohort of 5-19 years. When combined with the fact that over 100 million Indians suffer from diabetes, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (the country tops the charts for juvenile diabetes), and the country has one of the highest