Impact of Socioeconomic Profile on Nutritional Status of School Children

Objectives: To study the effect of socioeconomic factors such as birth order, family size, family type, parent’s education level and family income on nutritional status of school children.

Methods: It was a cross sectional survey conducted at Madurai district, Tamil Nadu to assess the effect of socioeconomic factors on nutritional status of school going children age of 5-6 years belonging to different socio economic classes of the society. Systematic random sampling technique was applied to collect the sample. The interview schedule was used to collect the background information regarding caste, type of family, family size, number of children and educational status of parents, occupation and income. Body Mass Index in relation to WHO reference child growth standard was used for assessing nutritional status.

Results: Out of 60 children 30.00, 53.33 and 5.00 per cent children had mild, moderate and severe malnutrition respectively. Majority of malnourished children belonged to 3rd (51.66%) and 4th (30%) order of birth. The mild (28.33%) and moderate malnutrition (51.67%) children belonged to medium size family. The severely malnourished belonged to medium and large size family are 3.33 and 1.67 per cent respectively. Majority of the Mild (8.33%) moderate (23.33%) and severe (3.33%) malnutrition children belonged to mothers who were illiterate. Five per cent of children were severely malnourished and 18.33 per cent of children were moderately malnourished from the income range of ₹ 6000 to 7000.

Conclusion: The present study shows that the prevalence of malnutrition was significantly higher in school children age of 5-6 years. Poverty, low literacy rate, large families, women’s education appears to be the important underlying factors responsible for poor nutritional status of children (p<0.05).The malnutrition is higher in children of illiterate mothers because of lack of knowledge on importance of healthy diet.