Nutritional Profile of Children (0-5years) in the Service Villages of Gandhigram Rural Institute

K. S. Pushpa¹* and D. Jancy Rani²

¹Department of Home science, Gandhigram Rural Institute – Deemed University, Gandhigram. Dindigul (dt), Tamil Nadu. India
²Department of Nutrition & Dietetics, Standard Fire Works Rajaratinam College for Women, Sivakasi, Tamil Nadu, India.

India is home to largest child population in the world with around 157.86 million children, constituting 15.42 percent of India’s population, who are below the age of 6 years. More than 60 percent of children living in South Asia are malnourished. In this study, socio economic background of children, age at marriage of parents, pregnancy related complications and health and nutritional status of children are focused. Door to door survey was conducted in13 service villages of GRI. The sample frame consists of 538 children .A self structured interview schedule was used to collect the data. Interview method was chosen for collecting data from the mothers of children. The general objective of the study has to prepare nutritional profile of children in the age group of (0-5 years) in the service villages of Gandhi gram Rural Institute Tamil Nadu. Out of 538 children 50.2 percent boys than girls population constituted 49.8 percent. Over weight was found among 8.6 percent of children. As per mid upper circumference, 87.2 percent of children were normal, 10.4 percent of children were in the stage of underweight and risk of malnutrition, 2.4 percent of children had severe malnutrition. It is also seen that the nutrient intake of calcium and minerals by the selected children were below the RDA. Intake of calcium and iron among 0-1 year children was slightly excess of RDA by 0.04 and 0.02 percent. The nutritional status of children below two years in rural areas is yet to be improved as one out of ten children are malnutrition. This condition needs to be changed by the better implementation of maternal and child health programmes.

Malnutrition; RDA; Balwadi; Nutritional status

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