Hyderabad: Millet based mid-day meals can boost a child’s growth by 50 per cent in three months, according to a study of 1,500 children in Karnataka which was released by Niti Ayog today.
ICRISAT scientists who have been part of the research say that improvement in the children was noted in terms of weight and also length. An increase in height was noted in a few subjects as the nutritional intake by the body improved.
Millets also provide good stamina which allows children to be physically active.
The findings of the study were released jointly by Prof Ramesh Chand, Member, Niti Aayog, and Dr Ashok Dalwai, Chair, Empowered Body, Doubling Farmers’ Income, Government of India, in New Delhi.
Millets are being propagated as a substitute for rice. Improvement in millet farming was carried out by ICRISAT as it is a crop which does not require too much water. With the changes in climate and the water scarcity, millets are being presented to farmers as a good option. The mid-day meal in Karnataka was a part of the ‘Smart Food’ study where the acceptance and impact of millet based mid-day meal was studied.
“It is not good enough just to say we are going to add millets to the meal,” said Dr S. Anitha, a nutritionist at ICRISAT and the study’s corresponding author. “The type of millet, its variety, how it is cooked and the foods it is combined with are some of the key elements that can make a difference in nutrition. For instance, the amount of iron available in a meal can be doubled by selecting the right variety of millet. This is the first known scientific study of millet based meals in a school feeding programme.”
The researchers gave children in the study meals of idli, khichdi, upma and bisibella bath in which rice was replaced by pearl millet (bajra), ragi (finger millet) or little millet (kutki). The anthropometric measurements at the end of the feeding programme were compared with that of a control group.
