A Study to Assess and Compare the Daily Nutrient Intake and Nutritional Status of the Children Utilizing and Not Utilizing Aanganwadi Services of District Ambala, Haryana.

Abstract

The children <6yrs are the best resource for human development and constitute 17% of total population of India, IMR in our country is 46.07/1000 live births and under five mortality is 62/1000 live births, Govt. of India is expanding ICDS programme. The present study compared the Daily nutrient intake against Recommendatory Dietary Allowance and Nutritional status, and to determine relationship between daily nutrients intake and Nutritional status of the children utilizing and not utilizing Anganwadi services. Utilizing General system model and non experimental approach, data was collected using 24 hour dietary recall for Daily nutrient intake (carbohydrate, proteins, fats and calories) and anthropometric assessment for nutritional status (Height, Weight and BMI on WHO charts) of 60 randomly selected children utilizing and not utilizing Anganwadi services of Ambala, Haryana. Finding revealed that under nutrient intake, daily carbohydrate intake of children utilizing (132.95±62.28) and not utilizing (86.65±39.78), calories intake of children utilizing (820.89±257.64) and not utilizing (632.62±283.92) Anganwadi services was significantly different at with t value 3.42 and 2.69 respectively, at 0.05 level of significance. Under nutritional status of children utilizing and not utilizing Anganwadi services was not significantly different .There was significant relationship of carbohydrate intake with height in both groups and significant relationship of carbohydrate with weight in children availing Anganwadi services . There was significant relationship of protein intake with height & weight and Fat intake with height with(r =0.618,P value<0.05) and(r= 0.605 , P < 0.05) respectively in children not availing Anganwadi services. Study concluded that the children utilizing and not utilizing Anganwadi services have the similar nutritional status.