On estimating the inadequacy of energy intakes: Revealed food consumption behaviour versus nutritional norms (nutritional status of Indian people in 1983)

Abstract

Combining some notions from the Darwinian theory of evolution with the laws of physics, the nutrition experts often derive normative recommendations on the mean level of energy intake required by the members of a large population. That such norms are fraught with serious conceptual difficulties, should be evident from the lively but inconclusive debates which have been raging among the nutrition theorists since the early 1980s. This article undertakes an empirical investigation into the food intake behaviour of about 123,000 households covered during the 1983 consumer expenditure survey of India. A procedure is suggested for deriving the average caloric intake levels in different regions at which people begin to experience ‘food abundance’ ‐ levels inferred only from the self‐expressed behaviour of consumers. The observed inter‐state differences in these behaviour‐based food abundance levels are then examined to explore the question of adequacy/inadequacy of energy intakes in different states of the Indian Union. Estimates of the incidence of hunger emerging from the analysis of food consumption behaviour of households (revealed in the 1983 survey) are compared with the corresponding estimates obtained with the use of nutritional norms. In addition to the detailed analysis of food consumption (during the reference period) reported by the households, a direct question relating to their self‐perceived (subjective) adequacy/inadequacy of food availability throughout the year was also asked from a very large subset of households in the sample. Some preliminary and essentially exploratory results of this subjective inquiry are also presented.