Faculty: Prof. Kareenhalli Venkatesh, Chemical Engineering

Wellness is a holistic concept of a healthy balance of the mind, body and spirit, that results in an overall feeling of well-being. A healthy body is the first step toward wellness. Living consciously towards taking care of the physical body should be inculcated from a young age. Nevertheless, Indian infants and children today are confronted with a grave health problem. On the one hand, kids in rural areas suffer from stunted growth and malnourishment, whereas, on the other hand, urban children are faced with obesity and overnutrition. An alarming 44 per cent of Indian children are underweight, and 22 per cent obese – constituting a staggering two-thirds of Indian youngsters who are unhealthy. These unwell children of today will emerge tomorrow as a society plagued with reduced immunity towards infectious diseases and an increased risk for lifestyle diseases – a catastrophe in the making. Reduced productivity and increased mortality rate arising from these problems results in an overall health burden on the country leading to huge GDP losses. This is not just a result of poor economic conditions but also ignorance in making choices about the food that is to be provided to infants and young children.

For the last six years, our group has been developing a system level model for human whole-body metabolism, to relate physiology to diet through gastro-intestinal absorption model and physical activity. Recently, we have extended this model to infants (6-24 months) and children (2-18 years). This physiological mathematical model captures the effect of lifestyle on the health of Indian children.

The inputs to the model are physical details such as age, gender, height, weight, abdominal and hip circumference; and lifestyle details such as diet, physical activity, sleep duration, and water intake. The model then predicts changes in body weight, height, BMI, fat mass and muscle mass, and indicates the deviation from ideal health status. The model will also be extended to predict micronutrient levels and plasma metabolite values for kids. It can then be used to suggest changes in diet and exercise to make the child healthier.

This is best implemented digitally through a web portal and a mobile app which can be used to collect data, predict the health status and advise lifestyle interventions towards wellness management in Indian children. Towards this, a database of nutritional details for typical foods eaten by kids will also be created.

This web portal and app can be used by parents for managing the health of their children, both male and female, between the ages of 6 months to 18 years, in a scientific and rational way instead of empirical advice by using heuristics and current health indicators. Pediatricians and schools can manage and keep track of children’s diet, wellness and growth. Obesity and malnourishment in children can be mitigated by predicting its severity and following the optimal diet composition, to return to a healthy state with ideal body compositions. The model and quantification methodology developed can also be useful to create protocol to manage wellness in kids. For every ₹1 spent to prevent babies from growing up physically and mentally stunted, a nation eventually saves ₹16. We need to engage the government and other agencies involved to participate in the holistic use and management of the platform. Efforts may be needed to educate and train social workers to use the platform efficiently. In doing so, we can eradicate this epidemic of malnutrition and obesity from India.