Nutritional candy introduced to improve health
medium for improving the nutritional intake of up to 14 million
school children.
The initiative aims to provide deprived school children with a lemon-flavoured candy that contains all the necessary vitamins required for healthy development.
Many children from poor families are fed in schools by the government, and the new programme is aimed at tackling their nutritional problems.
A low cost and well-received alternative to supplement pills, the iron-laced candy is seen as a positive step towards tackling issues of poor nutrition amongst India's poorer families.
Large numbers of children suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which are thought to damage health, impair work capacity and reduce intelligence during young children's development.
Already 5 million children have been given the candy and plans are afoot to introduce the confection, which contains vitamins A and C, iron and folic acid to a further 14 million.
The programme is being run by the government alongside the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) and is somewhat different to the views taken by western governments such as the UK where there is a strong notion against confectionery in schools.
Nutritional problems faced by India are clearly different to those in the UK, however should this programme prove a success, maybe confectionery companies should take note.
