The prevalence of undernutrition among the Santal children and quality of life of their households: a study from hilly region of West Bengal, India

Malnutrition is a global phenomenon in general and India is no exception. Present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of undernutrition among the Santal children of Ajodhya Gram Panchayat of Purulia district of West Bengal, India. Here, quality of life of the households of the studied research participants is also investigated to understand the role of quality of life in the prevalence of undernutrition. A total number of 307 children aged in between 5–10 years were evaluated using the standard anthropometric techniques, such as height-for-age, weight-for-age and body mass index for-age to determine the prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight conditions of the Santal tribal children. The nutritional status index of children and the quality of life index of those children’s households have also been calculated to perceive the relation between these two indices. A cluster analysis has also been performed to see the similarity in terms of nutritional level among the children across the mouzas of Ajodhya Gram Panchayat. The prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among the children is found to be 27.69%, 36.81% and 44.63% respectively. The overall prevalence of undernutrition is recorded 58.31%. The nutritional status index is calculated to be 0.488 (moderate) for children, while the quality of life index for households is computed as 0.199 (very poor). The study reveals the occurrence of undernutrition among children is closely associated with poor quality of life of households of Ajodhya. The chi-square tests indicate that no statistically significant variation (p < 0.05) in the prevalence of undernutrition in between male and female children, and among the different age groups is observed.