patterns of population growth in nepal - Institute for Social and ...

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Malnutrition is still considered to be a great
hazard to the general health of the population. Very
high level of malnutrition among the children is
reported in several studies conducted so far. '!be
Nepal Health Survey Which was conducted in 1965-66
found that about 4 per cent of all children below 9
years of age are affected by "clinical malnutrition M
and also found the population of Nepal as a whole to
be strikingly unhealthy.
Pourbaix similarly found in
an anthropometric survey carried out in 1974 that 71
per cent of the surveyed children were reported to
have "stunted" growth -
low height for their age and
19 per cent were reported to have a problem called
"wasting" - low weight for their height (Thapa, 1980:
152). The Nepal Nutrition Status Survey of 1975
found a very low nutrition level in rural areas. The
survey \'/hich concentrated on children in mo st susceptible
ages found that 52 per cent of the children had
suffered from long term undernutrition, 7 per cent
from acute undernutrition and 4 per cent both from
acute and chronic undernutrition (Seddon, 1987: 69).