Overweight in India's under-fives doubled in 15 years, then fell. Nine states still worry researchers

India's child nutrition story is usually told through stunting and wasting. A cross-sectional study published in JAMA Network Open on 29 September 2026 looked at the other end of the scale: overweight and obesity in children under five. Researchers led from San Diego State University used the four most recent waves of the National Family Health Survey, covering 2006 to 2024, and estimated trends for all 36 states and union territories.

Using the World Health Organization's definitions (weight for height more than 2 standard deviations above the WHO median for overweight, more than 3 for obesity), overweight rose from 1.55% of under-fives in 2006 to 3.42% in 2021, and obesity from 0.50% to 1.30%. In the 2024 wave, which the authors could only use as published state and national estimates, overweight was back down to 1.3%. The analysis of individual children covered 467,995 children from the 2006, 2016 and 2021 surveys.

The 2030 Global Nutrition Target asks countries to keep child overweight at 5% or less. The model projects that India will stay under that line nationally, but nine states and union territories had only a low to moderate probability of doing so: Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. The authors call for regional rather than national-only programmes. A survey can show a trend but not its causes, and the 2024 dip rests on summary figures rather than the full data.