Gender Dimension of Children Malnutrition Among Tribal Children in India

Abstract

Malnutrition is considered a catalyst to global burden diseases, and it is a major concern in developing countries like India. Child malnutrition has declined over the decade, but one-third of children are still malnourished, which adversely effects the mental health of children and is a risk factor of child mortality as well as morbidity. About 1.04 million under-5 mortality is occurred due to malnutrition in India. This present study is investigated to examine child malnutrition across gender among the states and major tribal states in India. For this study purpose, National family health (NFHS-4) data is used to analyze gender-wise child malnutrition status among all states and fourteen major tribal states in India. The bivariate and binomial logistic regression model has been done to understand the distribution of malnutrition status among children and the impact of background variables in child malnutrition. These results show that a high prevalence rate of malnutrition is observed in Northern, Central, and Eastern parts of India; it is about 40% in the stunting and underweight indicator among malnutrition parameters. Half of the children belonging to the socially backward class are at a higher risk of malnourishment. The prevalence rate of malnutrition indicators such as stunting and underweight is very high about 50% in the Jharkhand among the major tribal states. Significantly, this study found that female children are less malnourished than male ones but, in Manipur, Meghalaya, and Mizoram, underweight is high among girls compared to boys, and stunting is high in females than the male in Maharashtra among the tribal population. So, this is inspiring that we needed effective nutrition and health policy for reducing malnutrition in India and fulfilling the SDG goals 2 and 5 and targets by 2030.