Healthcare Lower is better

Stunting in children under 5

Percentage of children under 5 years whose height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO reference median. A measure of chronic undernutrition.

Tamil Nadu's child stunting is 20.7% % (2024), per International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), MoHFW.

Tamil Nadu, latest

20.7%

2024

Last verified 2026-06-30

Change

-23.6%

2015 → 2024

Rank vs compared states

#1 of 5

TN vs MH, KA, GJ, UP · lower is better

Tamil Nadu's Child stunting is 20.7% (2024), down +23.6% since 2015. It ranks #1 of 5 compared states (lower is better).

Read this number carefully

The latest year (2024) is from a different source; treat the most recent change cautiously.

Source Survey International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), MoHFW Coverage 2015 – 2024 Sources & methodology ↓

About this indicator

This is the share of children under five whose height is well below the norm for their age, the standard marker of chronic undernutrition reflecting sustained shortfalls in nutrition, repeated infection, and sanitation over a child's early life. Unlike short-term wasting, stunting accumulates from pregnancy onward and is largely irreversible after early childhood, so it responds slowly to intervention. It comes from periodic national surveys, so figures represent the survey period and can lag current conditions.

Child stunting · 2015 – 2024

Tamil Nadu's Child stunting fell from 27.1% (2015) to 20.7% (2024).

Source: International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), MoHFW

Compare with Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh

1 GJ Gujarat 35.3% 2024
2 UP Uttar Pradesh 31.1% 2024
3 MH Maharashtra 29.5% 2024
4 KA Karnataka 26.5% 2024
5 TN Tamil Nadu 20.7% 2024

Tamil Nadu highlighted. Each row shows that state's value and the year it is from. Compare like years with care.

Where this data comes from

The provenance of every value above and how to cite it.

Source provenance

Observations come from 3 distinct sources, segmented below by period.

Click any segment to open the source publication and verify the values yourself.

Methodology & notes

Survey-based anthropometric measurement; WHO 2006 child growth standards. Series spans NFHS-4 (2015-16), NFHS-5 (2019-21), and NFHS-6 (2023-24). District-level NFHS-6 fact sheets are not yet published, so the district indicator remains on NFHS-5.

Alternate sources tracked

· International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), MoHFW (National Family Health Survey, Round 5 (2019–21))
· International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), MoHFW (National Family Health Survey, Round 4 (2015–16))