Nutritional status of preschool children in the drought affected Kalahandi district of Orissa.

A community-based cross-sectional study was undertaken to determine the magnitude of undernutrition and protein-energy malnutrition among young children during 1996-97 in drought affected Kalahandi district of Orissa. A total of 751 children aged 0-5 yr were studied for anthropometry and clinical signs of nutritional deficiencies from 15 Gram Panchayats selected using probability proportionate to size sampling. There was no significant difference between boys and girls for nutritional status. According to weight-for-age, 57.1 per cent of the children were suffering from underweight (< median -2SD) and 21.3 per cent of children had very low body weights which were < -3SD of standard. Height-for-age and weight-for-height data showed that 41.8 per cent of children suffered from stunting and 27.9 per cent recorded wasting. The children below one year of age had relatively lower prevalence of malnutrition than the other age groups. The prevalence of clinical PEM in the form of marasmus was found in 0.7 per cent of children, while kwashiorkor was absent. This study showed that malnutrition is still a leading problem among preschool children of Kalahandi district and this has not improved in spite of nutrition intervention programmes which are currently in operation.