Nutritional Status of Rural Govt. Primary School Children in Khammam District, Andhra Pradesh, India.

ABSTRACT

Background: Rural school children are more vulnerable victims of undernutrition and its consequences. On that ground, rural govt. primary school children were examined on the basis of height, weight and few background variables to find real picture of nutritional status. Objective: To assess nutritional status of govt. rural primary school children in Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh, India. Materials and Methods: A cross sectional study adopting a multistage random sampling technique was conducted among 600 govt. primary school children of rural communities of Khammam district, Andhra Pradesh. Anthropometric measurement like weight for age and height for age was recorded to assess nutritional status. Data were collected by interview and physical examination and were analyzed with SPSS10.0 Results: Among 600 children, 36.0% were in Grade I malnutrition, 37.7% in Grade II malnutrition, 6.3% in Grade III and 19.0% of children were stunted and 4.0% were severely stunted. Girls (20.1%) were more stunted than boys (17.9%). Conclusions: The study concluded that despite adoption of several measures to curb the malnutrition, still high prevalence of undernutrition was observed in govt. rural primary school children in India and to be addressed properly immediately.