INTRODUCTION:

Nutritional status of children provides an indirect measurement of quality of life of an entire population. Under nutrition is a major threat to the survival, growth and development of Indian children. They are vulnerable to malnutrition due to low dietary intake, lack of child care, intrauterine growth retardation and a high rate of infectious diseases. The prevalence of underweight is extremely high in South Central Asia which accounts for almost half of the global problem.

Children below the age of 5 years constitute 15% of the total population of country and from nutritional point of view they form a vulnerable segment. The factors affecting child malnutrition is very complex and are influenced by multidimensional factors which have not yet been much explored specially among the tribes of Chhattisgarh. Child associated severe malnutrition so that appropriate nutrition. The present study was confined to Kamars which is a particularly vulnerable tribal group of Chhattisgarh.

Kamars are known as jungle tribe of Dravidian origin. They are the original inhabitants of Chhattisgarh. They earn their living by making bamboo items. They are known for their skill and they supplement their income by selling forest produce collected by them. Earlier studies (Mitra et al. 2006) have shown that Kamars have a high degree of child malnutrition and has been reported to have unique cultural, social, economical and demographical characteristics. Therefore, an attempt has been made to assess the overall prevalence of undernutrition using composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF) among Kamar children of Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh. Kamars inhabit the hill districts of Raipur, Bilaspur, Durg and Sarguja and mainly concentrated in Gariaband and Dhamtari. According to census 2011 the total population of Kamar is 26,530 which is almost 0.34% of the scheduled tribe of the state.

Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh state has 342 villages. It comprises of three tahsils and four blocks viz. Dhamtari, Nagri, Kurud and Magarlod. Out of the four blocks only two blocks were selected for the present study. Predominantly Kamar inhabited villages were selected purposively from Nagri and Magarlod block of Dhamtari district. Twenty villages each having more than twenty Kamar families were selected. All the households having 12-59 months were selected for data collection. In total 198 households were selected for the present study. 248 Children (123 boys and 125 girls) aged12-59 months and their mothers/ care takers formed the sample for the present study. It was a cross sectional population based study. Interview schedule was developed pertaining to the demographic characteristics of household, nutritional status of children, child care practices, immunization status of children, clinical signs of malnutrition, mother’s nutritional status, etc. An attempt was made to assess the magnitude of child malnutrition and the factors affecting it among Kamar tribe of Dhamtari.

Techniques of Martin and Saller (1959) was followed for taking the anthropometric measurements. Method proposed by Nandy et al 2005 was used for computing the composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF). SPSS version 16.0 was used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Table no. 1. Classification of children with the composite index of anthropometric failure (CIAF)

Group name	Description	Wasting	Stunting	Underweight
A	No Failure	No	No	No
B	Wasting	Yes	No	No
C	Wasting and Stunting	Yes	No	Yes
D	Wasting, Stunting and Underweight	Yes	Yes	Yes
E	Stunting and Underweight	No	Yes	Yes
F	Stunting only	No	Yes	No
Y	Underweight only	No	No	Yes

*Classification based on Nandy et al., (2005).

The classification of CIAF has been presented in table no.1 The sum of the children in groups B-F provides the CIAF. CIAF is an indicator in to overall estimate undernourished children in a population. It can also identify groups of malnourished children who have been non identified by conventional indices.

Table no. 2. Prevalence of undernutrition among the stunted Kamar children aged 12-69 months.

	Age in years
Category	12-23 months	24-35 months	36-47 months	48-59 months	Total
Stunted	53.44	49.01	61.25	49.15	54.03
Underweight	68.96	86.27	92.50	79.66	82.66
Wasted	79.66	92.15	90.00	94.91	89.66
CIAF	79.31	88.03	92.50	91.52	96.37

Percentages are given the parentheses. n=number of individuals.

Table no. 2 shows the prevalence of stunting, under weight, wasting and CIAF among the Kamar children. The table revealed that only age group 24-35 months and 48-59 months children showed little higher CIAF as compared to stunting, wasting and underweight and all the other age groups showed a higher CIAF as compared to the other conventional indices. However the overall CIAF (all the age groups combined) showed that 96.37% of the Kamar children are malnourished and it showed a higher percentage of children to be malnourished as compared to the other conventional indices.

Table no. 3. Classification of Kamar children with anthropometric failure (n=248)

Group name	Anthropometric Status	Number of Children (%) (Present Study)	Indian children under 5,NFHS 2005 (N=45,377) (Calculated from NFHS-3)
A	No Failure	9 (3.7)	38.2
B	Wasting	5 (2.0)	4.3
C	Wasting and Stunting	16 (6.4)	6.9
D	Wasting, Stunting and Underweight	112 (45.1)	8.9
E	Stunting and Underweight	84 (33.9)	24.8
F	Stunting only	22 (8.9)	14.6
Y#	Underweight only	0 (0)	2.3
Total		248 (100)	100.0

The above table shows that overall, only 9 (3.7%, group A) of Kamar children were normal anthropometrically. The study revealed that 96.37% of the children were suffering from one or other form of “Anthropometric Failure”. 45.1% of the children were suffering from wasting, stunting and underweight which is very high as compared to the other reported studies and the percentage of children suffering from stunting and underweight also showed quite high percentage which are of both of great concern.

Table no. 4. Values of SI UI and WI among the Kamar children

Index	Boys CIAF=115	Girls CIAF=124	Overall (sex combined) CIAF=239
SI=Stunting / CIAF	10 / 115 = 0.086	12 / 124 = 0.096	22 /239 = 0.092
UI=Underweight / CIAF	0 / 115 = 0	0 / 124 = 0	0 /239 = 0
WI=Wasting /CIAF	2 / 115 = 0.017	3 / 124 =0.024	5 /239 = 0.020

Boys: ST = 10, UW = 0, WS =2; Girls: ST =12, UW =0, WS = 3.

Overall sex-combined: ST = 22, UW = 0, WS = 5.

The above table presents the sex specific as well as sex combined values of three indices viz. stunting index, underweight index and wasting index. The overall values of stunting index, underweight index and wasting index (sex combined) were 0.092, 0.00 and 0.020 respectively. These values in boys were 0.086, 0.00 and 0.017 and in girls they were 0.096, 0.00 and 0.024 respectively.

Table no.5 Comparison of undernutrition using conventional anthropometric indices and CIAF among pre-school in India

Population / Ethnic group	Area/Region	Sample size	Age group	Stunting (%)	Underweight (%)	Wasting (%)	CIAF (%)	References
Indian children	State wise data, India	24,395	0-5 years	45.1	47.1	15.9	59.8	Nandy et al., 2005
Slum children of Coimbatore	Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu	405	0-5 years	48.4	49.6	20.2	68.6	Seetharaman et al., 2007
Children of Chapra Nadia District	West Bengal	2016	3-5.9 years	48.2	48.3	10.6	60.4	Biswas et al., 2009
Bauri caste	Purulia District, West Bengal	347	2-6 years	39.2	51.2	26.6	66.3	Das and Bose, 2009
Children of Hooghly	West Bengal	1012	2-6 years	26.6	63.3	50.0	73.1	Mandal and Bose, 2009
Preschool children of Darjeeling	Darjeeling, West Bengal	256	1-3 years	46.9	52.3	15.2	65.6	Mukhopadhyay et al., 2009
Rural-urban children	Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh	371	0-5 years	40.7	49.1	14.6	62.8	Kumar et al., 2010
Santal ethnic group	West Bengal	251	2-6 years	26.3	38.2	12.7	43.4	Das and Bose., 2011
Children of Midnapore Town	West Bengal	658	2- 6 years	40.6	43.8	23.4	58.2	Sinha and Maiti .,2012
Bangalee ethnic group	Purba Medinipur, West Bengal	225	3-6 years	30.7	42.7	12.0	50.2	Acharya et at., 2013
Urban slum children of Mumbai city	Maharashtra	634	2-4 years	33.8	35.7	18.5	47.8	Savanur and Ghugre, 2015
Children of Agra city	Uttar Pradesh	458	0-5 years	41.9	42.8	22.7	60.0	Agarwal et al., 2015
Children of Singur Block	West Bengal	113	0-5 years	17.0	17.0	15.0	32.7	Dasgupta et al., 2015
Urban slum children	Jammu	250	0-5 years	42.8	38.8	20.4	73.2	Dewan et al., 2015
Bhumij children	Odisha	136	1-6 years	32.4	42.6	25.0	54.4	Goswami, 2016
Urban slum children	Nagpur city	256	0-5 years	34.8	45.3	15.2	58.6	Dhok and Thakre,2016
Children of Delhi	Delhi	100	0-5 years	43.0	35.0	25.0	62.0	Gupta et al., 2017
Karbi tribe	Karbi Anglong, Assam	400	2-5 years	35.50	26.75	18.50	51.00	Kramsapi et al., 2018
Kamar Children	Dhamtari District, Chhattishgarh	248	12-59 months	54.03	82.66	89.66	96.37	Present study

Source Kramsapi et al., 2018

DISCUSSION:

The National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-3 showed that at national level rate of undernutrition for children younger than five years of age were 43% for under nutrition, 48% for stunting and 20% for wasting and the corresponding value for Dhamtari were 82.66%, 54.03% and 89.66%. Children with multiple Anthropometric Failures are more likely to be ill and to come from poorer households (Nandy et al., 2005), with those experiencing a triple failure carring the greatest morbidity risk.The CIAF has been applied successfully in India and Kenya (Berger et al. 2006), (Seetharaman et al. 2007), and recently in an extensive assessment of child poverty in Tajikistan (Baschieri and falkingham 2007). Table 05. The comparison of undernutrition using conventional anthropometric measures and CIAF of Indian children along with the present study. The table reveals that the Kamar children shows the highest CIAF (96.37%) as compared to all the other populations reported so far. Next highest CIAF (73.2%) was reported by Dewan et al., 2015 and children of Hoogly (73.1%) reported by Mandal and Bose, 2009 from urban slum children of Jammu. Setharaman et al., (2007) also reported high CIAF of 68.6% among the slum children of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Das and Bose, 2009 reported 66.3% CIAF among the Bauri caste of West Bengal and the lowest was recorded among the children of Singur block of West Bengal (32.7%) reported by Dasgupta et al., 2015. The other conventional indices were also observed to be very high among the Kamar children in comparison to the other populations reported by the other authors.

CONCLUSION:

The overall CIAF (all the age groups combined) showed that 96.37% of the Kamar children are malnourished and it showed a higher percentage of children to be malnourished as compared to the other conventional indices. Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure, CIAF is better indicator of stress as compared to the traditional measures of stunting underweight and wasting.

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Received on 14.10.2024 Revised on 08.11.2024

Accepted on 30.11.2024 Published on 11.12.2024

Available online on December 31, 2024

International Journal of Technology. 2024; 14(2):91-94.

DOI: 10.52711/2231-3915.2024.00013

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