Nutritional Status of Rural Children (9 to 11 years) From Different Agro-climatic Zones of Punjab

The study was conducted to assess the nutritional status of 9 to 11 years old children from different agro-climatic zones of Punjab. Data was collected from 526 subjects (males = 280, females = 246 ) randomly drawn from randomly selected villages located in four agroclimatic zones i.e zone 1: submountain undulating region; zone 2: undulating plain region; zone 4: western and western plain region and zone 0: central plain region of Punjab. The selected children were measured for height and weight for anthropometric assessment of their nutritional status. The data was analysed to compute various indices like height for age (to assess long term malnutrition), weight for age (short term malnutrition) and weight for height. Chi-square test was applied to project significance of inter- zonal differences in frequencies in various grades of nutritional status. When data was compared with NCHS standards, majority of the males and females were found to be nutritionally normal in their long term nutritional status. In short term nutritional status, majority of the males were mildly undernourished, while majority of the females were moderately undernourished. The computation and comparison of weight for height indices depicted that majority of the males were mildly undernourished, while the females were mainly suffering from moderate level of under nutrition. When present data were compared with ICMR standards, majority of the males and females in this age group were nutritionally normal in all the four agroclimatic zones. The severe form of malnutrition was most prevelent in undulating plain zone as compared to other zones. Inter-zonal differences were significant in both the sex groups with respect to short term malnutrition while long tern malnutrition was observed only among females.