Ebook Household Characteristics and Calorie Intake in Rural India: A Quantile Regression Approach
Access to adequate food and proper nutrition is one of humanity’s basic needs. One fifth of the population of developing countries i.e., around 800 million people, were reported to be suffering from chronic undernutrition by the FAO (1992). Malnourishment creates a vicious circle without regular adequate food an individual is not able to live a healthy and active life. Without such a life the individual will be unable to efficiently produce or procure food or perform well in the labour market. Thus, it is very important to provide people with adequate food availability or in other words “food security”.
Food security is broadly defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as access to enough food for a healthy, active lifestyle. Although national food security is important it is only effective if measures are taken at the household level. At that level “food security” is defined as ‘access to food that is adequate in terms of quality, quantity, safety and cultural acceptability for all household members’ (FAO 1992). In economics, the importance of health and nutrition has been widely accepted. Health and nutrition have both demand and supply side effects. On the demand side, people require health and nutrition to stay fit as they derive satisfaction from feeling healthy. Health and nutrition have an effect on the fertility and mortality of the population which has a direct effect on development of the economy. On the supply side, health and nutrition affect individual productivity, thereby having an effect on human-capital formation.
These factors affect the efficient functioning of an economy. Thus a healthy nutritional population status is vital for economic growth. There is great interest around the world in improving nutrition in developing countries though measures such as price subsidies and income generation policies. In order to actually “improve nutrition” it is important to define the meaning of an adequate and balanced diet for different groups of individuals within a society and design economic policies in a manner which caters to their needs. “A large variation exists in defining ‘adequate’ nutrition, ranging between 1400 and 2800 Kilo Calories (Kcal) and is therefore subject to value judgement” FAO (1992).
In India, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) sets up the Nutrition Advisory Committee and recommends the “dietary allowances” of the various nutrients for the various age groups within the population. As per the ICMR report a daily energy intake is recommended of 2400 Kcal per person in rural areas and 2100 Kcal per person in urban areas. For the entire population, the basic minimum energy consumption on the basis of the recommended dietary allowance is 2200 Kcal per capita per day. To give a general idea about the calorie consumption pattern and income distribution in India, Table 1 presents the distribution of per capita calorie consumption and per capita expenditure for rural households.
The data is based on two rounds of the National Sample Surveys conducted in 1987-88 and 1993-94 1. The table exhibits a wide variation in the per capita calorie consumption (PCC) of house-holds at different quantiles of the calorie consumption distribution. In 1987-88, the mean per capita calorie consumption suggests an average individual is adequately nourished. However a closer look at the table suggests that what is true for the average household might not be true for the entire population. Households in rural India, in the less than the 50th percentile range are undernourished according to the ICMR recommendation of a daily intake of 2400 Kcal per person. Those at the 50th percentile have a per capita calorie consumption close to the recommendation at 2438.66 Kcal. In 1993-94 the calorie distribution pattern was different . The 2400 Kcal/day mark was achieved by households at the 25th percentile, suggesting nutritional standards in India improved in the post reform period2. Another variable reported in the table is per capita expenditure (PCE). Per capita expenditure also improved in 1993-94. For the 10th quantile of expenditure distribution, per capita expenditure was just Rs. 81 in 1987-88 but had improved to Rs. 152 by 1993-94.
This wide variation observed in the nutrient consumption pattern suggests the nutrient demand pattern is not only determined by the ‘measurable physiological needs’ of the human body but also by diversity in agro-climatic conditions, food habits, life styles and spiritual/philosophical inclinations. Researchers have concentrated on both the determinants of health and nutrition and also the impact of health and nutrition in the process of economic development. In the presence of such heterogeneity, different nutritional policies have to be prescribed for different members of a society, making it essential to have proper estimates of nutrient consumption responses to prices and income for different sections of the society. Policy makers often overlook the case where there is a risk of inadequate or excess intake. Such inadequacy prevails at the tails of the nutrient intake distribution i.e., situations where calorie consumption is either very low ( the left tail) or very high (the right tail) than at the mean (or the average).
Thus in issues involving the public health and nutrition perspective it is important to characterize the population at the tails of nutrient intake distribution. Given the wide variation in calorie consumption at various points of the distribution a single policy measure depending on the average calorie consumption would be unrealistic and unable to reach the expected goals. An individual’s demand for nutrition of an individual will depend on his present level of nutrition. An overnourished person might demand a lesser amount of nutrient vis a vis a person who is undernourished. Thus in designing nutrition policy it is necessary to take into account the “level of healthiness” of the population. With various policy measures taken by the government, the individuals at different points of a nutrient intake distribution might respond differently so that focusing the implication just on the mean would give an incomplete picture of the response. Thus, empirically, it is important to look for such behaviour by studying the whole distribution. Therefore, in focusing only on the conditional mean, a parametric approach such as the OLS would give an incomplete picture of the various factors promoting healthier diet behaviour.
The present paper models the entire distribution of calorie consumption and is organized as follows. Section 2, theoretically models farm household behaviour and derives the reduced form demand equations for various commodities, one of which is nutrient demand. Section 3 presents a literature survey of past research pertaining to nutrient demand. Section 4 gives a detailed overview of the quantile regression technique used in the analysis. Section 5 explains the data used in the analysis. On the basis of the reduced form equations obtained in Section 2, Section 6 empirically models the demand of nutrients calories at the various points of the calorie consumption distribution and analyzes the results. The interpretation of the results concentrates on where the risks of inadequacy is higher i.e., undernourished and overnourished households. Section 7 discusses the conclusions.
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