Journal of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Open Access

Assessment of stunting and malnutrition among school-going children from different cultural regions of Punjab, India

21^st European Nutrition and Dietetics Conference

June 11-13, 2018 | Dublin, Ireland

Sukhdeep Kaur Grewal, Kiran Bains and Harpreet Kaur

Punjab Agricultural University, India

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Nutr Food Sci

Abstract :

Using Thirty-cluster multi-stage sampling technique, a survey was conducted to assess stunting and malnutrition among 1050 children, aged 11-17y, enrolled in urban and rural government schools of three regions of Punjab namely Majha, Doaba and Malwa. Height-for-age and BMI-for-age z-scores were calculated and interpreted based on WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition. Average height of the children for most of the age groups was marginally lower (92.4 to 98.7%) while the average weight was lower (78.8 to 92.8%) when expressed as percent of reference standards. The average BMI of most of the children was more than 90% of the reference standards. The results concluded that thinness was more common than stunting among Punjabi school children. Maximum stunting among children was in Majha followed by Malwa and Doaba regions, while prevalence of thinness was higher among children from Doaba region in comparison to Majha and Malwa regions. The findings of the study provide health indicators for policy makers in designing effective intervention measures to improve child population health outcomes. greenmona29@gmail.com