2006, Volume 12 No. 2

ARTICLE 2

Nutritional Status of Preschool Children of Raj Gond - a Tribal Population in Madhya Pradesh, India

Barkha Sharma¹, Mitashree Mitra¹, Suman Chakrabarty² & Premananda Bharati^2
1 School of Studies in Anthropology, Pt. Ravishankar Shukla University, Raipur, Chattisgarh, India 
² Biological Anthropology Unit, Indian Statistical Institute, 203 B.T. Road, Kolkata- 700108, India

ABSTRACT
A cross sectional study of the nutritional status was made on 123 Raj Gond (tribal community of Central India) preschool children (62 boys and 61 girls; aged 1 to 5 years) in the Waratola village of Balaghat district of Madhya Pradesh, India. Anthropometric nutritional status was assessed by WHO criterion (SD classification) and also NCHS standard using weight for age, height for age, weight for height indices and MUAC. The prevalence of nutritional deficiency was also investigated by clinical signs. The results revealed that there was high prevalence of underweight (37.4%), stunting (46.3%), wasting (41.5%) and low MUAC (50.4%) as well as different grades of malnutrition. Boys suffered these more than the girls. Comparatively, Raj Gond preschool children were nutritionally more wasted than Gond and other nontribal preschool children of Madhya Pradesh. When gradation of malnutrition was compared with other tribal and caste preschool children of Central India, it was observed that the present children studied suffered more by different grades of protein energy malnutrition (PEM). The poorer nutritional status was also reflected through high prevalence of sparse hair (18.7%), conjunctival xeroxis (18.7%), angular stomatitis (32.5%) and other nutritional deficiency signs. All these observations suggest that preschool children need better nutrition to combat the problem of PEM. Further studies should be made to identify the factors responsible for it.

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