Malnutrition among Under Five Children in Peri-Tribal areas: A study on Prevalence and Factors associated in Vadodara District of Gujarat State in India.

Background: Malnutrition among under-five children is a foremost public health problem across India. United Nation estimates that 6.3 million under age-five mortality were occurred in India, of which 45% died due to malnutrition. The objective of the study was to find out the prevalence and factor associated with malnutrition in term of underweight, stunning, and wasting in children under five years of age in peri-tribal areas. Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted at the Anganwadi centres in 6 villages under the Rural Health Training Centre. Out of nine Anganwadi centres, five were selected using systematic random sampling method. Total of 370 children aged below five years were selected. Results: Among the 370 children aged 0-5 years, (29.1%) children were normally nourished, (70.79%) children were malnourished and had one or more form of malnutrition. Only stunting was present in (19.5%) children and only wasting was present in (8.9%) children. Children (5.94%) was suffering from underweight and stunting both. Stunting and wasting both was present in (22.16%) children and wasting and underweight both was present in (10.5%) children. respectively, (1%) Children were suffering from underweight, stunting and wasting. All three indices (Underweight, Stunting & Wasting) of under nutrition were found to be higher in low-birth-weight children. Conclusion: Mother's educational qualification is strongly associated with nutritional status of their children. This might be due to better health care practices in terms of proper exclusive breast feeding, in-time complementary feeding and quality and quantity of complementary feeding among literate mothers as compared to illiterate mothers.