Author(s): Nirmalya Kumar Sinha and Jyoti Prakas Haldar

Abstract:
Chronic under nutrition is associated with serious health impairments in the rest of the life of those children who were able to survive even after chronic undernutrition. Thus a community based, cross-sectional survey was carried out among 836 children (393 boys and 443 girls) of age group belonging to 2-5 years living in rural areas of Paschim Medinipur District, West Bengal. The nutritional status of the children, Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF), and the stunting index, underweight index and wasting index were evaluated. The said parameters were calculated as Z-score using the suitable reference values. The One-way ANOVA analysis (F value), Student’s ‘t’ tests and Chi square test were also done to evaluate the association amongst individuals, as well as group. The study revealed that the prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting were 46.53%, 40.31% and 28.59% respectively. It was noted that the age has significant (χ²=17.329; P<0.001) effect on the prevalence of stunting as well as wasting (χ²=9.658; P<0.05) among the children. However, the age seems to have no significant association with underweight (χ²=3.474; P>0.05) and CIAF (χ²=5.501; P>0.05). The present study revealed a high prevalence of malnutrition among preschool children in the studied area.

Pages: 601-607  |  725 Views  80 Downloads