Nutrition status and inequality among children in different geographical regions of Maharashtra, India

Abstract

IntroductionNutritional status is influenced by the complex social, biological, environmental and cultural factors that are highly interrelated. Despite being a demographically and economically developed state, Maharashtra has a high prevalence rate of child malnutrition with alarming figures. There is uneven development in different geographical regions. AimThis paper assesses the extent of nutritional status and inequalities among children in different regions of Maharashtra. Data and MethodsThis study utilizes data from the fourth Round of the National Family Health Survey (2015–16), the large-scale survey on demography and health recently conducted. Simple chi-square test was conducted to test the association and, further binary logistic regression analysis was done by adjusting various socio-economic and demographic characteristics. Additionally, to deal with the inequality aspect, concentration curve, concentration index, and decomposition analysis techniques were used to access and measure the degree of socio-economic inequality in geographical regions of Maharashtra. ResultsThe result shows that household aspect wealth quintile, religion caste/tribe, mother education, child ever born and different regions of Maharashtra were the main factors contributing to poor child malnutrition. Rural area has the highest percentage of underweight (40%) children followed by stunted (38%) and wasted (26%) respectively. Almost half of the children are underweight whose mother has no education, with 45% of stunted and 26% wasted children. Nandurbar district of North-Maharashtra regions has a prevalence of underweight (56.17 per 100) and stunted (47.38 per 100) children while Gadchiroli district of Vidarbha region has highest prevalence of wasted (46.59 per 100) children respectively. DiscussionDue to lack of proper development, poor awareness about keeping up and improving the dietary benefit of nourishment and absence of cleanliness and sanitation as compared with other social groups. ConclusionsThe aim of this paper was to explore the geographical variations in malnutrition in Maharashtra. The present study plentifully uncovers that, as far as child nutrition is concerned, the Scheduled Tribes groups seems to be socially excluded among all the social classes. Economic growth has played a definite role in reducing child nutrition, but it is not primarily responsible for the significant decline. As per the results, we have seen that among rich and poor inequalities exists and were highly significantly different regions of Maharashtra. RecommadationsThe paper calls for state and regions specific strategies which are needed to be designed and executed on a priority basis, keeping in view the keeping in view the idea of disparity or the nature of inequality in childhood malnutrition in the state and its differential characteristics across the regions.