"We believe that as India increases its focus on the health needs of overweight and obese people it must continue to address the needs of the large number of severely undernourished people in society," says Razak.
The study used information collected in Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) of Indian women with a sample size of 72,469 in 1998 and 91,243 in 2005.
"One might think that as a country grows economically, the majority of the underweight population would move into the average BMI range, but our study shows the opposite and the people of average weight are disappearing in India," says Razak.
"This growing trend of body weight extremes is going to pose a major challenge for health care and policy leaders," says Razak.
