Kerala’s Model of development has always been recognized as one of the global benchmarks in respect to the Human Development indicators. Kerala compared to other states of India has achieved high literacy rates, low infant and mortality rates. Apart from this positive picture there exists intra state disparities within the state which is a matter of great concern. Certain districts in Kerala such as Wayanad, Idukki, Malappuram etc. has larger tribal settlements compared to other districts. It is identified that in such districts the malnutrition indicators such as stunting, wasting and underweight are high. Wayanad is one of the districts which has high percentage of tribal population and the percentage of children stunted, wasted and under weighed are much greater than the state average. The present study is an attempt to assess the supplementary nutrition coverage across all the eight ICDS projects of Wayanad district and to analyze whether the supplementary nutrition coverage has an impact on the stunting, wastage and undernutrition among the child beneficiaries belonging to the age group of three to six years. Severely Acute Malnutrition (SAM), Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM) and Moderately Underweight (MUW) are the three indicators used in the study to assess the nutritional status of the children across the eight ICDS projects in Wayanad. Secondary data collected from ICDS District Office, Wayanad was entered and analyzed to see the correlation between the SNP coverage and SAM, MAM and MUW status. The results showed that there exists a correlation between the SNP coverage and the malnutrition indicators which implies that the projects where there is higher percentage of malnutrition indicators such as Sulthan Bathery and Manathavady, there is greater SNP coverage. Even though there is higher SNP coverage in such tribal projects compared to the rural ICDS projects, the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight are still high in such projects implying the SNP coverage has definitely contributed in improving the nutritional status of children in Wayanad but in case of tribal children Supplementary Nutrition Coverage alone is not adequate to tackle the chronic nutrition among the children
Despite the rapid progress in the health infrastructure and notable economic growth, prevalence of undernutrition, stunting and wasting remains an alarming issue in India. According to the NFHS 5 data, about 35.5% of children under five are reported to be stunted, about 19.3% remains wasted and about 32% of children are underweighted, good proportion of children belong to Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) category which poses an increased risk of mortality and morbidity rates. Undernourishment in childhood if not properly tackled will lead to negative impact on the cognitive and motor development of the children. This will in turn lead to early school dropouts, reduced productivity at their early childhood and more prone to chronic diseases. Three indices namely underweight, stunting and wasting indicates whether the child is nutrient deficient. If the child has low weight for its height the child is said to be wasted. Wasting leads to acute malnutrition which might be due to the recent loss of weight as part of serious illness or reduction in food intake. Stunting refers to when the child has low weight for its height and it will result in the chronic malnutrition which might be due to long term faltering growth even during the birth. Maternal malnutrition and poverty are the major reasons identified for the chronic malnutrition.
Realizing the severity of the situation and the intergenerational threat undernutrition poses, Government of India has initiated certain programs and schemes to eliminate stunting, wasting and underweight among the children. Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) introduced in 1975 is one of the oldest and long-term programmes with the objective to reduce malnutrition. The core six services provided under the ICDS scheme are Supplementary nutrition, preschool non formal education, nutrition and health education classes, health checkup, immunization and referral services.
Download
Download XML