A Cross-Sectional Study to Assess Causes of Undernutrition in Under 5year Children in Gwalior District: A Population Based Study
Keywords:
Undernutrition, under five children, Z scoreAbstract
Background: India has the largest burden of child mortality and undernutrition in the world. More than one-third of the world's 150 million undernourished children younger than 5yr old live in India. This study was conducted with objectives to identify possible causative factors for under-nutrition; to identify prevalent nutrition practices for sick children; and to assess the perception of respondents towards Govt. programs and Govt. health services for improving the nutrition of children.
Material &Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Gwalior District among doctors, Supporting Staff (Anganwadi workers, ANM and Feeding Demonstrators) and Mothers using a pre-designed, pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire.
Results: Total 82% Doctors believed that lack of awareness about nutritional requirements of young children, 78% supporting staff believed Faulty feeding habits and 71.66% mothers believed that low quality of health care were the most important cause of child undernutrition. Majority of mothers said that being too busy with household and other work was the most important reason for their inability to give best care to their under five children. Majority of mothers were dissatisfied with the quality of Anganwadi services.
Conclusion: Study clearly indicates that there are still miles to go in dealing with the problem of undernutrition. Empowering mother, improving Anganwadi services and most importantly spreading knowledge and awareness about child rearing practices can help in solving the problem of undernutrition.
References
Ezzati, M., A.D. Lopez, A. Rodgers, S. Vander Hoorn, and C.J.L. Murray. "Selected Major Risk Factors and Global and Regional Burdern of Disease Lancet. 360 (2002): 1347-1360.
Caulfield, Laua E, Mercedes de Onis, Monika Blossner, and Robert E. Black. "Undernutrition as an Underlying Cause of Child Deaths Associated with Diarrhea, Pneumonia, Malaria and Measles" American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 80 (2004): 193-8.
Pelletier, DL, EA Frongillo JR, DG Schroeder, JP Habicht. "The Effect of Malnutrition on Child Mortality in Developing Coun-tries." Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 73 (1995): 443-448.
Rice, Amy L., Lisa Sacco, Adnan Hyder, and Robert E. Black. "Malnutrition as an Underlying Cause of Childhood Deaths As-sociated with Infectious Diseases in Developing Countries." Bul-letin of the World Health Organization 78(10) 2000: 1207-21.
Scrimshaw, Nevin S. and John Paul San Giovanni. "Synergism of Nutrition, Infection, and Immunity: an Overview. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 66 (1997): 464S-77S.
Gragnolati, Michele, Meera, Shekar, Monica Das Gupta, Caryn Bredenkamp, and Yi Kyong Lee. India's Undernourished Chil-dren: A Call for Reform and Action. The World Bank, Washing-ton DC: 2005.
Shettey Prakash, "Malnutrition and Undernutrition.:Medicine 34.12 (2006): 524-529.
Grantham-McGregor, Sally, Yin Bun Cheung, Santiago Cueto, Paul Glewwe, Linda Richter, Barbara Strupp, et al. :Child De-velopment in Developing Countries 1: developmental Potential in the First 5 years for Children in Developing Countries." Lancet 369 (2007) : 60-70.
Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, 1990-2003. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. United Na-tions. http:/www.un.org/special-rep/ohrlls/1dc/MDGs/Goal_1-final.pdf.
De Onis, Mercedes and Monika Blossner. WHO Global Data-base on child Growth and Malnutrition. Programme of Nutri-tion, World Health organization. Geneva, 1997.
International Institute for Population Sciences and ORC macro Internation. National Family health Survey-3, IIPS, Mumbai: 2007.
http://www.motherchildnutrition.org/india/pdf/nfhs3/mcn-NFHS-3-Madhya-Pradesh-state-report.pdf page no. 85
Agarwal AK: Need to update in the present scenario. Indian Journal of Community Medicine Vol. 33, No. 1, January 2008: 50-51
Hindu Business Line 2012; 21st May
Purchasing power in rural areas up by 2 percent: National Sample Survey 2003. Available from: URL: www.financialexpress.com/news/purchasing-power-in-rural-areas-up-by-2-per-cent-national-sample-survey/77419. Accessed on 4th May,2010
Parhalad CK. A Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid. Eradicating poverty through profits. Warton School Publishing 2006
Dunlop JE ,Velkoff VA. Women and the economy in India. Interna-tional program center. U.S Census Bureau, the Official Statistics 1998; 1-7.
Paul M, Charles M. Women‘s time allocation to childcare: Deter-minants and consequences. Australian Economic Papers 2000; 39 (1): 1-24.
Muthusamy S. Are working mothers in India investing less time in the next generation? Population of Association of America (PAA) 2006 Annual Meeting, California, USA 2006; 1-44.
Leslie J, Lycette M, Buvinic M. Weathering economic crises: The crucial role of women in health‖, in Dover E. Bell and Michael M. Rich (eds.), Health, Nutrition and Economic Crises. Dover, Mass.: Auburn House Publishing Company 1988; 307-348.
Engle PL, Menon P. Care and nutrition: concepts and measure-ments. World Development 1999; 27 (8): 1309-1338.
Mittal A, Singh J, Ahluwalia SK. Effect of maternal factors on nutritional status of 1-5 years old children in urban slum popula-tion. Indian Journal of Community Medicine 2007; 32 (4):1-4.
Sayer LC, Gauthier AH, Furstenberg FF. Educational difference in parents‘ time with children: Cross national variations. Journal of Marriage and the Family 2004; 66(5) : 1152-1169.
Turnbull B, Andrade G M, Huerfano N, Ryan GW, Martinez H. A contrast between mother‘s assessment of child malnutrition and physical anthropometry in rural Mexico: A mixed methods com-munity study. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 2009. 41 (3); 281-206.
Christiaensen L, Alderman H. Child malnutrition in Ethiopia. Can maternal Knowledge Augment the role of Income. African Re-gional Writing Paper Series No.22. Economic Development & Cul-tural Change 2004.
Saxena NC, Srivastava N. ICDS in India: Policy, Design and De-livery Issues, IDS Bulletin 2009; 40 (4), 45 - 52.
Gragnolati M, Bredenkamp C, Shekar M, Das Gupta M and Lee Yi-K. India‘s undernourished children: A call for reform and ac-tion. 2006. World Bank Washington
Brown L V, Rogers BL, Zeitlin MF et al. Comparison of the costs of compliance with nutrition education messages to improve the di-ets of Bangladeshi breastfeeding mothers and weaning-age chil-dren. Ecology of Food and Nutrition 1993; 30:99-126.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The authors retain the copyright of their article, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.
