ISSN: 2578-5001
Authors: Jaiswal A*
Anthropometric measurements have recently become popular for assessing childhood health and nutritional status. Anthropometry is a low-cost, simple, and non-invasive approach to determining a child's nutritional health. There is a scarcity or lack of information on the nutritional status of Aboriginal preschoolers. As a result, research was done to measure the nutritional health of tribal preschool children based on anthropometry. During November and December 2018, a communitybased cross-sectional study was done in a village region in Villupuram, Tamil Nadu, India. The present study aims to study the nutritional profile among tribal preschool children of Tamil Nadu, India, based on nthropometry. Weight-for-age, height-forage, weight-for-height, and mid-upper-arm-circumference-for-age z-scores were used to measure nutritional status. According to the revised WHO reference standards, undernutrition was defined as a Z-score of -2.0 SD. The current study comprised 87 Irula (PVTG) and Malayali (ST) children aged 13 to 60 months. Underweight, Stunting and wasting were prevalent in 61.8%, 38.0 %, and 54.2% of children, respectively. According to MUAC, 57.2% of children were undernourished, with 45.4% and 11.8% being moderately and seriously underweight, respectively. The MUAC demonstrated a strong agreement (Kappa=0.82) with underweight, followed by a moderate agreement (Kappa=0.54) with wasting. On the other hand, Stunting had a poor agreement (Kappa=0.26). The overall prevalence of Stunting was high, while underweight and wasting were very high, indicating a severe situation, according to WHO criteria for severity of malnutrition.
Keywords: Irulas; Malyali; Malnutrition; Tribal; MUAC; Anthropometry
