29 per cent rural children underweight: Study

Chennai: Rural areas of Tamil Nadu, no doubt supply the food grains for all in the state, but their children, especially those from the lower socio-economic background are more nutritionally deprived than their urban counterparts. And nearly 29.67 per cent of them are underweight.

Combating malnutrition in non-urban areas is becoming a challenge. Realising the importance of improving the nutrition among the children the state government is implementing the MGR Nutritious Meal Programme in rural areas for Pre-School and Prime School Children aged 2-5 years and 5-9 years respectively. It was later extended to benefit children aged 10-15 years.

A study on nutritional status of school children in rural, semi urban and urban areas of Tamil Nadu by the Stanley Government Medical College, here, recently, revealed that about 67.33 per cent of children were underweight and of them 29.67 per cent were from rural areas; 6 % were found to be overweight or obese, of which 4.67 per cent  were from urban areas.

“There is a significant statistical difference in the prevalence of underweight children in social class 4 & 5 as compared to class 1, 2 & 3. The mean calorie consumption of the study population was 1,333 kcal, which supplies only 50 % of calorie requirement by ICMR standards; the mean calorie intake by children in rural area was much lower than in urban area,” says the cross sectional descriptive study carried out involving 300 children in the age group 11 to 14 years from urban, semi-urban and rural areas.

As per estimates, 40 per cent of the world’s malnourished live in India. When contacted, official sources said, the implementation of variety meal scheme from March 20, 2013 and its extension throughout the State from Aug. 15, 2014, has helped to improve the health of the children in government schools.