Maternal Nutritional Knowledge and its Association with Nutritional Status of Rural School Going Children

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Date
2015
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Publisher
MPUAT, Udaipur
Abstract
The present study was conducted with an objective to assess nutritional status of school going children and impact of nutrition education program on maternal nutritional knowledge. The study was conducted at village Hurda of Hurda panchayat samiti of Bhilwara district of Rajasthan. From that village four government schools were selected purposively. Total 120 regular school going children (15 girls and 15 boys from each school) of age range 7-9 year, free from any kind of developmental disability were selected for study. A self- structured interview schedule was used to collect the information. Nutritional status of the respondents was assessed by using anthropometric measurements (height and weight), clinical assessment and dietary recall method. The data obtained was analyzed using frequency, per cent, mean per cent score, z test for single mean, z test for two mean, paired t-test, correlation coefficient. It was found that majority of respondents were belonging to Hindu religion, had nuclear family and low socio- economic status. All respondents were vegetarian. The height and weight of respondents were lower than reference value. According to Waterlow classification, 44.43 percent respondents fall in the category of severely wasted and 32.20 percent in severely stunted category. As per Gomez classification and BMI for age, 60 percent and 33.30 percent respondents were undernourished respectively. Clinical assessment revealed that equal number of respondents (41.66%) had normal and poor appearance. Other clinical signs observed were, Diffused pigmentation (25%), lack of luster (16.66%), Pale conjunctiva (23.33%) and Cheilosis (19.16%). In respect to RDI Dietary intake of respondents was substantially inadequate (<50%) in all food groups, whereas intake of sugar was marginally adequate (83%). Intake of protein of respondents was 81 per cent of RDA. Comparison between intake of food and nutrients was also done and the results of the study indicated that there were significant differences in respect to certain food groups (pulses, fats and oils, green leafy vegetables and other vegetables) and nutrients ( energy, protein, riboflavin, niacin and calcium) between boys and girls. Different aspects of nutrition were selected and a package for nutrition education program was developed for respondent's mothers. The 5 days education program was organized in separately (3 batches) and pre, post- test was conducted. A significant difference was found in overall and aspects wise pre and post knowledge of the respondents. Prior to nutrition education program all the respondent’s mothers (98%) had low knowledge but after attending the program majority (82%) of them shifted to high knowledge category. There was significant positive correlation between mother’s nutritional knowledge and nutritional status of children. High degree of Positive correlation was found between Gomez classification and Waterlow classification with respect to the nutritional knowledge of respondent’s mothers. On the Basis of research findings it can be concluded that majority of the respondents were undernourished and their food and nutrient intake was inadequate as compared to reference values and the nutrition education program made a significant impact on nutritional knowledge of mothers as post-test knowledge was found high in all aspects.
Description
Maternal Nutritional Knowledge and its Association with Nutritional Status of Rural School Going Children
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Citation
Gupta and Lakhawat, 2015
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