A decade ago, in March 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi first mentioned obesity in his 18th Mann Ki Baat address. Since then, Modi has spoken about the issue on at least 18 occasions, including during his last Independence Day speech.
In roughly the same time, the proportion of India’s men and women, aged between 15 and 49 years, who were overweight or obese increased by about 10 percentage points, according to the sixth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-6) conducted during 2023-24.
