35% of India's children are stunted: the malnutrition crisis that shapes every generation

Myth 1: A chubby baby is a healthy baby. Fact: Indian children can carry early baby fat and still be stunted because length, not weight, captures chronic undernutrition. Doctors measure height-for-age. A 24-month-old who looks well-fed but is two standard deviations shorter than the WHO median is already stunted and at long-term risk.

Myth 2: Vegetarian diets cannot meet a child's protein needs. Fact: Dal, paneer, eggs where accepted, milk, soya, peanuts and millet combinations easily meet a young child's protein requirement. The real problem is monotony, not vegetarianism. Rice with a thin watery dal twice a day is what fails the child, not the absence of meat.

Myth 3: Stunting is reversible at any age with good food. Fact: The first 1,000 days from conception to age two are the only window in which most stunting can be prevented. After age two, height-for-age gaps are almost impossible to close. This is why ICDS, Anganwadi services and Take Home Rations focus so heavily on infants and pregnant mothers, not on older children.