What comes to your mind when you think of a typical Middle Class Parent spending money on his child ? School fees , tuition classes , gadgets , books , these things are termed as investment for their child . But one thing is missing from this list which is Nutrition and balanced diet .

Food is not categorized as an investment but an operational cost . For the middle class families , food is a way to keep the body alive . For them , health depends upon the amount of food their child has eaten , quality and nutritional content rarely comes into the picture .

This mindset is embedded deep inside these parents , the result of this mindset would be poor nutrition of their kids . Lets get to know why middle class parents don’t care about diet quality and nutrition.

• We Don’t Treat Good Food as an Investment

You can measure good education with good marks and good placements in a company , that is something which is visible to everyone in society . But no one would think “Why Ravi has not got ill since last year ?” The society does not care ,hence that Dal , egg and other nutritious food would feel like an expense rather than investment .

Only when middle class parents would start feeding them the right amount of nutrients , their body and brain would develop to enhance their output . Not everything has to be done for the validation of the society , society won’t help your son/daughter when they get ill .

The return on investment on nutrition is measured quite differently . It makes sure that there is no loss in efficiency and enhances the productivity of the investment already made in education . Education and Nutritional investment don’t compete with each other they actually complement each other .

Education along with health and nutrition are considered as components of Human Capital by the World Bank . Improving nutrition in child’s early years can raise the wages by 5-50 percent and reducing the stunted height growth can increase GDP by 4-11 percent.

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• Expensive = Unnecessary

There is a strange notion around middle class family’s expenditure . A family may find fruits and better-quality ingredients for their food as expensive and on the other side they would spend ₹5,000 on a wedding gift for a distant relative or splurging ₹10,000 on an outfit that may be worn only once or twice in a lifetime .

Despite having the money , the middle class mindset deems balanced diet as an expensive venture whereas pleasing the society becomes their first priority . This mentality leads to shortcuts : switching from maida noodles to atta noodles and treating this change as a step towards a healthy diet , whereas whole foods and adequate protein never enters the conversation . Nutrition should never be treated as luxury .

• A Full Stomach = Good Diet Mentality

For majority of the middle class families , the first thing they ask their kids after eating their meal is ” Are you full ?” . But a stomach can be filled also with ice cream and chocolate -and parents don’t feed these things daily because they might be fulfilling but not nutritious .

The same logic should be applied to the daily routine , if your child does not get variety of nutritious food , the absence of those nutrients may not get lead to any immediate consequences but over the time your body organs will indicate by not performing its functions properly .

As per Government’s HCES 2023-24 report average urban families expenditure for food is 39.68 % of their total budget compared to 47.04% in rural families . The surprising fact is that out of the 39.68 % food budget urban families use almost 10% for processed foods and beverages .

The idea is not fill your kitchen with exotic fruits and vegetable but to slowly phase out 7 days a week Aloo ki sabzi ,bhaat and roti from your diet and replace it with variety of nutrient dense food .

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• Same Function = Same Value Mindset

There is no rationality in the thinking of a typical middle class parent when it comes to diet choices . They always opt for function over the value that the food brings to the table .If two ingredients provide the same function , the cheaper one would get prioritized . Lets understand this with an example of cooking oil ; Olive oil and refined both help us cook food, then why pay more for olive oil ,they are completely neglecting the benefits of a cold press olive oil just because it is expensive .

This thinking can be labelled as cost minimization by blatantly overlooking value per rupee . A middle class parent may see ₹150 and a ₹300 food item as a ₹150 additional expenditure This happens just because the effects of consuming such food is not immediate it gradually distorts your immune system .

India loses around $12 billion in GDP every year due to nutrients and mineral deficiencies . This impacts the productivity of the entire country .

• “We Turned Out Fine” Mentality

The typical Middle Class Parent always think that ” We never had these variety of nutritious food on our table , but we still ended up fine .” But they forgot that surviving is not equivalent to achieving the best outcome . A World Bank analysis has showed that child malnutrition has remained significant even in India’s middle class & upper class families , this means that income alone does not translates into nutrition , intention matters . This lack of nutrition has also lead to lower schooling and future productivity .

Conclusion

Nutrition is the most overlooked investment parents make for their children , just because the returns are not direct in nature and invisible in nature . A good nutrition for a child upholds the investment made by the parents for them in the field of education or sports . The aim is not to force the parents to buy the expensive and exotic fruits and vegetable for their children but to change the way they perceive food and nutrition . You can achieve great things in life through good education , but in order to optimize your education , you will always need good nutrition .