Healthy wallets, unhealthy food

New Delhi: India’s rising consumption level is edging the country into a nutritional black hole. With greater amounts of money in hand to spend, as the quick estimates of national accounts for 2007-08 show, people have begun to move away from cereals, proteins and other healthy foods towards beverages and addictive items like tobacco.
Alarm bells are being sounded on how India’s nutritional security could be challenged even as its economic security gets better. For a country that still can’t provide enough for its poor, the results say the rich and the middle classes may be heading towards the other end of the spectrum—spending on unhealthy food.
Statistics on private final consumption expenditure—an indication of consumer spending trends—show that expenditure on food, beverages and tobacco continues to comprise the largest chunk of household budgets—about 42.3% in 2007-08. But it has come down when compared to 2000-01, when it stood at 48.2%.
The expenditure on cereals and bread has shown a decline from 11.7% in 2000-01 to 9.6% in 2007-08. Spending on pulses has dipped from 1.2% to 1.1% and on fruits and vegetables from 9.5% to 7.7%. The same holds good for other health food with spending on milk and milk products having declined from 7.1% to 6.2% and on meat, eggs and fish from 4.0% to 3.7% between 2000-01 and 2007-08.
This, while the spending on unhealthy items like beverages, paan and intoxicants has increased from 1.6% in 2000-01 to 3.1% in 2007-08. Similarly, expenditure on hotels and restaurants has also shown an increase—from 1.9% to 2.6%—in the same period.
With the economy growing, India is spending more on services. According to the data, the fastest growing components of household spending were related to the service sector, such as healthcare and communications. Consumers tend to spend relatively little on food and more on healthcare as their incomes increase. Spending on medicare, edu up: CSO
New Delhi: The quick estimates of national output, spending, savings and investment for 2007-08 released by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) reflect a clear hike in spending on medical care and health services—from 4.7% in 2000-01 to 5.7% in 2007-08.
During the same period, transportation and communication expenditure grew from 14.4% to 16.3% of the total household expenditure. Similarly, spending on recreation, education and cultural services has gone up from 3.7% to 5% of the Rs 26,05,859 crore consumption expenditure in the domestic market in 2007-08. Private consumption expenditure on durables grew from 3.3% to 4%.