Nutrient Consumption in India: Evidence from a Village Study

Adequate nutrition is one of the basic requirements for survival and is generally regarded as a core dimension in any evaluation of well-being. In the context of India, a country with high prevalence of poor nutrition, there is a dearth of nutrition studies with adequate coverage and comparability. Using primary data on food consumption from a village in a poorer state of India, we study the consumption of key nutrients, namely, calories, protein, carbohydrate, calcium and iron. Investigating the determinants of nutrition intake, we find evidence of consumption smoothing. By correcting for potential endogeneity in both expenditure and consumption of subsidised food through the Public Distribution System (PDS) we demonstrate a causal link from expenditure and the availability of subsidised food grains to nutritional intake. We also find evidence that other individual characteristics such as gender and occupation have an important role to play as determinants of nutrition.