Author(s): Malay Kumar Patsa and Dr. Suparna Sanyal Mukherjee

Abstract:
Children of scheduled caste families have worse nutrition and health status due to poor accessibility to health and nutrition related facilities. To assess the nutritional status of the scheduled caste children the present study was conducted in rural area of Bankura district in West Bengal. This community based cross-sectional study was employed on 185 scheduled caste children (6-10 years). A structured scheduled was used for data collection. To assess the nutritional status of the children, three indices – underweight, stunting and wasting were used. To estimate the overall prevalence of undernutrition, Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure (CIAF) was determined. A child with stunting, wasting or underweight is considered to be in a state of undernutrition or ‘anthropometric failure’. Child with ‘no failure’ is considered as normal nourished. Student’s t-rest was used to determine the sex difference in anthropometric parameters and χ² test was performed to find out the association among different groups. Result with P<0.05 was considered as significant. The findings of this study highlighted high prevalence of underweight (46.49%), stunting (24.32%) and wasting (29.73%). The overall prevalence of undernutrition was 54.05% and the nutritional status of 45.95% children was normal. No significant sex differences were observed among different indices of nutritional status (P<0.05). The present study highlights high prevalence of undernutrition among rural scheduled caste children.

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