Role of “health mix” in alleviating malnutrition among 3–6-year children: A community-level, nonrandomized, interventional study

INTRODUCTION: Malnutrition, in every form, presents a significant threat to human health. Even with the services provided, malnutrition still remains as one of the major problems and needs to be reconsidered to tackle with innovative methods. OBJECTIVES: The objective is to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among preschool children and to assess the effectiveness of “health mix” intervention in reducing malnutrition. METHODOLOGY: This was a nonrandomized, interventional study conducted on preschool children (3–6 years) attending selected Anganwadi centers from March 2022 to February 2023. All the preschool children attending Anganwadi centers belonging to the rural field practice area were screened for malnutrition and assessed for malnutrition using the WHO growth charts. “Health mix” was provided as an intervention to the malnourished children and followed up to 6 months. Health education about low-cost energy dense foods and health foods was provided to all the mothers at each visit. RESULTS: The prevalence of the malnourished children was 119 (41.3%), where 3% of the children belonged to mild category, 32% to moderate category, and 6% to severe malnutrition. The mean preintervention weight of the children was 13.81 kg, and after intervention increased to 15.41 kg and 15.89 kg, respectively, at 3 rd and 6 th month, respectively, which was found to be statistically significant. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of the malnourished children was 41.3%. With the “health mix” intervention done in the present study, it was found that there was a significant improvement in the weight gain.