Nutritional Status of School Going Children in Government Primary Schools of Varanasi

Abstract

Background: Nutrition is one of the most essential things of life. It plays a crucial role in body growth,development and maintenance of health. The objective of this study is the study of the impact of the mid-daymeal scheme on the nutritional status of school children (6-12 years) in Varanasi District.Methodology: This study was conducted for 320 students of class 1-8 at five government primary schoolsin two educational blocks in Varanasi district. Simple random sampling was used for selection of children.The variables of the study were the height and weight of selected students.Results: The results of the study indicated that the nutritional status of MDM children. The study undertakenon a representative and adequate sample of Varanasi revealed that as per Waterlow classification, around 45per cent of children were found to be normal as per their weight for age and 72.8 per cent of children werefound to be normal as per their height for age. The prevalence of wasting and stunting in these children washigh (55 % wasted and 27 % of stunted), with boys and girl suffering almost equally. The observations of thepresent study suggest that the distribution of height of boys were found shorter than boys of WHO standardsby -1.8 cm to -6.4 across all ages. The maximum difference was found in age group of 13 years. The weightof boys increased with in age from 6 to 14 years. The weight in the age group 6 to 14 years ranged from 19.5kg to 50.4 kg in boys.Conclusion: The overall findings of the study revealed that the mean weight of boys and girls was foundshorter than boys and girls of WHO standards. There was no significant difference in the prevalence ofstunting and wasting for both boys and girls