Milk Consumption Pattern among Rural Farm Women of District Kapurthala

Abstract

The present study was conducted in two blocks of district Kapurthala by selecting 5 villages from each block and 15 farming families from each village. Thus, a total of 150 farming families were interviewed with specific objective to know the milk consumption pattern among farm women as well as their health status. It was observed that 45.3 per cent farming families were not keeping any dairy animals and therefore the milk availability was only 0.456 kg/d/family in comparison to those having 1 to 5 animals (1.2 kg/d) and more than 5 animals (1.1kg/d). Thus, the data regarding milk consumption by the farm women followed the same trend as per the availability of the milk in a family. Since, there was no intake of milk or milk products as per recommendations by the farm women in the villages in spite of the fact that they are fully engaged in the farm work which requires more energy. It was also noticed that in the villages, the educational qualification of the farm women was also less which need to be improved in order to improve the living standard of the farming community. The study showed that about 40 per cent of the farm women (having no dairy animal) and 46 per cent (having 1–5 dairy animals) were suffering from lower backache which was a very disturbing phenomenon. Moreover, these women do not know the cause of such type of problems due to ignorance about proper feeding habits as well as occurrence of nutritional diseases.