Assessment of Nutritional Status of under-five year rural children in ...

communities, communities residing in chronically drought affected rural areas arenutritionally the most vulnerable segments of the populations.Several nutrition programmes have been designed and are beingimplemented in India, through respective State Governments, during the past fewdecades for the prevention and control of both macro and micronutrient malnutritionin the population. They include supplementary feeding through ICDS, distribution ofiron and folic acid tablets, massive dose vitamin A supplementation, Mid-day mealprogramme etc. Also, several poverty alleviation and developmental programmesare being implemented by central and State governments, for the overallsocioeconomic development of the communities. In addition, Public DistributionSystem and TPDS are striving to provide essential commodities at affordable price,especially to those below poverty line throughout the year, all over the country, toensure household food security.Children, who are subjected to socio-economic and dietary constraints duringtheir critical years of growth and development, end up as adults with small body size.Such adults may be apparently healthy, but there is evidence to suggest that theirproductivity and earning capacity are impaired (Satyanarayana and Naidu, 1977 7 ).Repeat surveys by National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (1999 8 ) in eight Statesrevealed that, despite very little or no change in the dietary intakes of rural populationover a period of time, there was a decrease in the prevalence of severe forms ofundernutrition among young children with concomitant increase in normal grades.However, the proportion of children with mild to moderate undernutrition remainedsimilar. Recent survey carried out by NNMB (2006 9 ) in the rural areas of nine Statesrevealed that about 40% under 5 year children were underweight, 45% were stuntedand 20% were wasted. The corresponding figures for the State of Madhya Pradeshwere, 46%, 59% and 24% respectively.According to NFHS-3 10 , in the State of Madhya Pradesh, 60% of