Very High Prevalence of Thinness Among Rural Bengalee Preschool Children of Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) Scheme of Sagar Island, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India.
Undernutrition can be considered as the most important cause of death in this age group in developing countries including India, where high rates of under-five morbidity and mortality are present. Seven out of ten childhood deaths in India are due to respiratory infections diarrhoea and malnutrition.
Malnutrition is a pathological state resulting from a relative or absolute deficiency or excess of one or more essential
nutrients. Thus, the term malnutrition refers to undernutrition, over nutrition, specific nutrient deficiencies or imbalance. The assessment of nutritional status of population has attracted the attention of not only the nutritionists and other biological scientists, but also the economists and other social scientists with a view to understanding the health and socio-economic status of the population.
To evaluate the importance of the said service scheme programme, there is an urgent need to evaluate the nutritional
status of children at ICDS centres to conclude whether they have low rates of thinness.
The results of the present study clearly indicated that the nutritional status of these subjects is poor because of the existence of high-level of thinness. Findings of the present study would be very useful for the effective formulation of health and nutritional intervention programmes with the objective of reducing preschool undernutrition in terms of thinness. Therefore, appropriate effective measures should be under taken to reduce this high rate thinness.
Anthropol Open J. 2017; 2(2): 54-60. doi: 10.17140/ANTPOJ-2-114
