Stunted children under 5, India

Percentage of children under 5 years whose height-for-age is below −2 standard deviations of the WHO Child Growth Standards median.

Numerator

Children under 5 years below −2 SD height-for-age

Denominator

Children under 5 years with valid height and age measurements

Methodology

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS) is a household sample survey run by the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai, for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. NFHS-6 interviewed 679,238 households, 716,397 women and 100,977 men in two fieldwork phases (28 May 2023 – 26 Feb 2024 and 7 Feb 2024 – 31 Dec 2024), using a two-stage sample designed for national, State/UT and district estimates, with height, weight, blood pressure and random blood glucose measured by trained health investigators. Every value is a weighted survey estimate, a percentage of the stated population group, not a count of services. NFHS-6 indicator 69, 'Children under 5 years who are stunted (height-for-age) (%)'. Stunting reflects long-term undernutrition. Children are weighed and measured (length if under 2 years, height otherwise), and the result is compared with the WHO Child Growth Standards; the fact sheet's footnote: 'Below -2 standard deviations, based on the WHO standard.' The denominator is children under 5 years with valid measurements in the surveyed households (de facto: children who stayed in the household the night before the interview). Source: NFHS-6 fact sheet compendium, '<Place> - Key Indicators', indicator 69: the 'NFHS-6 (2023-24) Total' column for the 2023-2024 value and the 'NFHS-5 (2019-21) Total' column for the 2019-2021 value. The NFHS-5 figure is the publisher's own restatement printed on the NFHS-6 sheet (the original NFHS-5 State fact sheets are now behind a login on nfhsiips.in), and is cited as such. IHO stores totals only; the urban and rural NFHS-6 columns are not stored. Periods are stored as the national fieldwork windows: 2023-2024 (1 May 2023 – 31 Dec 2024) and 2019-2021 (17 Jun 2019 – 30 Apr 2021). Each State/UT was surveyed over a shorter stretch inside the NFHS-6 window (Appendix 2 of the compendium gives the dates; Kerala, for example, 4 Jul – 23 Dec 2023).

Caveats

Height-for-age depends on accurate ages and length measurements; measurement error tends to inflate stunting in surveys with weak anthropometry. A survey estimate carries sampling error: IIPS publishes relative standard errors for India only (Appendix 1), so small differences between States, or between rounds for a small State or UT, may not be real. The NFHS-6 fact sheets are provisional ('The results presented in the NFHS-6 Fact Sheets are provisional'); IIPS's final reports may revise them, and IHO records any change as a revision. Values the fact sheet prints in brackets rest on 25–49 unweighted cases and are stored as low-sample (shown with a warning, never scored); values it suppresses with '*' (fewer than 25 cases) are not stored. Manipur was not surveyed in NFHS-6, so it has no 2023-2024 value, and IHO does not carry its NFHS-5 value forward.