Study of under nutrition among under six years children in Kasturwadi village of disrtict Jalna, Maharashtra

ABSTRACT

Background: Malnutrition is a silent emergency. Malnutrition prevents children from reaching their full physical and mental potential. The health of children and youth is of fundamental importance. Without ensuring optimal child growth and development efforts to accelerate economic development significantly will be unsuccessful. Aim of the study was to study the prevalence of undernutrtion among the children under 6 years of age and to determine association of sociodemogrphic factors with undernutrition. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in children of under 6 years age living in the rural field practice area of Department of Community Medicine IIMSR, Warudi, Jalna, from January 2018 to December 2018. One ninety eight children were studied for nutritional status, socio-demographic measures were obtained from structured questionnaire and followed by anthropometric assessment using standards methods. Statistical analysis was done by using appropriate statistical test.Results: Study found that 44.79% children were underweight, 47.92% were stunted and 39.58% were wasted. Among sociodemographic factors age, maternal educational, working status and SES class had an impact on nutritional status of child.Conclusions: Prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting was high in this study, this calls for educating mothers and other caretakers in the family regarding increased nutritional requirements with increasing age for attainment of best possible nutrition and growth in children, targeted short-term strategies addressing underlying risk factors and more long-term poverty alleviation strategies may be needed.