Prevalence of Malnutrition among Rural Children Under 5 Years in Rural Area of Agra District

Abstract

India is the world's second-largest country in food production and also the home of malnourished children. Adequate nutrition is the foundation of children’s health, growth, and development. In India nearly half of the children under 5 years old are scummed to death every year due to malnutrition. The study's objective was to estimate the prevalence of undernutrition in children aged 1-5 years. Nutritional assessment of children was conducted in rural areas using standard anthropometric measurements of height and weight, MUAC, and HC analysed using WHO AnthroPlus software. Purposive random sampling was used in this research. Among 200 children studied 142 were more than 2.5 years old and 58 were below 2.5 years old. The prevalence of underweight (WAZ) in the above 2.5 years old categorywas 66(92.95%) out of 71 in boys and63(90%) out of 70 in girls. The prevalence of stunting (HAZ) was 64(90.14 %) out of 71 in boys and61(87.14%) out of 70 in girls. Among the below 2.5 years oldcategory were25(80.64%) out of 31 boys and 25(89.28%) out of 28 girls were underweight (WAZ). 26(83.87%) out of 31 boys and26(92.85%) out of 28 girlswere stunted (HAZ). The observed percentage for Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and Head circumference (HC) is 85.71 % and 64.28 % in girls and 77.41% and 70.96% in boys respectively.The dietary intake of girls was lower thanboys as compared to the RDA by ICMR. Malnutrition is highly prevalent in rural schoolchildren in line with the national prevalence