Determinants of dietary adequacy of nutrients consumption among rural school age children

Abstract

Introduction: Good nutrition during school-age is critical to cover the deficits suffered during childhood. Dietary intake with respect to adequate availability of food in terms of quantity and quality, ability to digest, absorb and utilize food and the social discrimination against girls can greatly affect the adequate nutrition of these children. The present is an attempt to determine the dietary pattern of energy and protein consumption among rural school-age children in Aligarh district and the study will also highlight the causes of inadequacy in terms of energy and protein consumption.
Material and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was undertaken in the rural field practice areas of Department of Community Medicine, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, A.M.U. Aligarh under Rural Health Training Centre. A sample of 350 school-age children was selected for the purpose of present study. A self prepared structured interview schedule was used as a tool for data collection. 24 hr dietary recall method was adopted to get the information about the dietary pattern of children. Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the statistical package for social sciences for windows SPSS (Version 16.0). To test the significance of association between dependent and independent variables, chi-square test was used.
Results and Discussion: In regard of energy and protein consumption pattern of school-going children, majority of them were having the inadequate energy (62%) and protein (72%) consumption pattern. Various determinants like gender of the child, social class, family type, mothers’ education level and working status of mothers’ were found significantly associated with energy and protein consumption pattern of rural school age children.
Conclusion: In the present study low socio-economic status of the family, illiteracy of mothers, large family size and non working status of mothers were found to be the contributory factors for inadequate consumption of energy and protein consumption pattern of rural school age children.