© Kamla-Raj 2004 Anthropologist, 6(2): 97-100 (2004)
Assessment of Growth Faltering Among Pre-School Children
C. Venkateswarlu, K.K. Reddy and A. Papa Rao
Department of Anthropology, Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati 517 502,
Andhra Pradesh, India
Phone: 877 224 9666 ext.263 (O); Fax: 877 224 8485
E-mail: alaharipaparao@yahoo.com
Keywords Growth. Pre-schoolers. Season. Economic Level. Community
Abstract In order to elucidate the effect of income levels and seasonal variation on growth pattern of pre-school children, body-weight measurement was assessed in 200 pre-schoolers, in different communities like Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST), Backward Class (BC) and Other Caste (OC) with a sample size of 50 (25 boys+25 girls) in each group in the rural areas of Srikalahasti, Chittoor District, Andhra Pradesh. Nutritional grades were classified based on ICDS charts and family income was assessed and classified as low income group (LIG), middle income group (MIG) and high income group (HIG). Scheduled caste, ST and BC communities were observed to have a high percentage of grade-I malnutrition, whereas in OC community normals were observed to be high. The data shows that growth faltering was high in summer (41%) followed by Autumn (29%), Rainy (15%) and winter seasons (14%). The percentage distribution of normals were decreasing and malnutrition grade I & II were increasing when income levels were decreasing. In all the income groups prevalence of growth faltering in summer was more or less equal, and in autumn season low income group shown high percentage of faltering followed by middle and high income groups. Taking caste into the consideration, low income group was represented by high percentage growth faltering in the decreasing order ST>SC>BC>OC. Most of the SC, ST depend on daily labour , and because of non-availability of work in summer, food intake may be low which reflects on growth of children.