An assessment of nutritional status of pre-school children enrolled under Anganwadi centre: An analytical approach and report

Abstract

Every child has the right to get affection, love and understanding, adequate nutrition and medical care free education and full opportunity for play and recreation, as the constitution of India upholds these rights and provides guarantee to protect the children from any sort of exploitation. The government of India launched the scheme of “Integrated Child Development Services” popularly knows as ICDS on October 2, 1975 with the assistances of UNICEF to tackle the problem in an integrated manner and to meet the challenge. The grass level of ICDS is Anganwadi and centre, is run by the Anganwadi workers. An angnawadi worker is the main functional unit and head of the center. Food in adequate quantity and quality is probably the most important factor affecting health and nutritional status. Due to the insufficient supply of diet majority of infants are suffering from protein energy and, thus have been associated with malnutrition. A statistical approach has been made to assess the nutritional status of pre-school children with the age group of 0-6 years of urban slum and rural of Samastipur district under ICDS scheme.