Assessment of Nutritional Status of the Government Primary School Children In Slum Area Of Bengaluru, Karnataka

Malnutrition is defined to be the condition resulting from relative or absolute deficiency of one or more essential nutrients. The school age period is nutritionally the prime time to build up the body stores of nutrients in preparation for rapid growth in adolescents. The nutritional state is therefore critical to the development and wellbeing of the nation. The physical growth of the child is thus reflected by different Anthropometric measurements especially height and weight. This study was done to evaluate the level of malnutrition in government (govt.) higher primary school in Bengaluru. Cross sectional descriptive survey was done using a structured questionnaire, the dependent variables for this study were the anthropometric measurable like height for age and independent variables for the study were occupation of parents, family income, maternal education, gender and type of residence (kacha or pucca). A total of 404 children were included from the govt. primary school in the study. It was seen that maximum children belongs to the 13+ age group most of them being boys. Their family monthly income being in the range of Rs.5000 to 6000. Most of their family members are daily laborer’s and housewives by profession. Therefore it can be concluded that the Mother’s Education is directly proportional to the child health. Hence development in fields on family employment, mother’s education will result in improved child health.