The Hindu : Kerala / Kochi News : `Malnutrition plagues Government schoolchildren'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 17, 2004

Kerala

Kerala - Kochi

`Malnutrition plagues Government schoolchildren'

By Shyama Rajagopal

KOCHI, NOV. 16. Haritha in Class VII and Savitha in Class VI wish that they could take to school something from home to eat during lunch. They do not like the rice and green gram supplied at the school. They are in an aided-school near Thripunithura.

But they are forced to eat the noon meal at school since it ensures that the family gets the allotted 5 kg rice every month.

Sreeraj Gopi and Ajmal M. M, both in class V, like to get have curries from home to eat with the noon meal given in the school.

While Anju Xavier eats only rice and takes home the gram, Bhanupriya K.V was found struggling to finish her food.

They are all students at the Government Upper Primary School, Valluvilly, near Koonamavu.

Midday meal

Many consider the midday meal to be the main food of the day. Each child is eligible for 60 gm of rice and 30 gm of gram a day. Of course, some children eat a little more and some a little less.

Even as the midday meal programme is implemented in the schools, there seems to be a borderline malnutrition in children from the Government and aided schools.

Survey

This was found in a sub-survey of a major survey on Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Diseases in Ernakulam district conducted by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which has its regional centre at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (AIMS).

The scientists have found that there is borderline protein energy malnutrition in about 45 per cent of children.

Paediatric cardiologist R. Krishna Kumar, leading the ICMR survey along with paediatric cardiologist Manu Raj, recommends that a large-scale nutritional survey be taken up.

Besides, there should be awareness among parents and teachers regarding malnutrition.

The team suggested that a school health education be introduced with better nutritional intervention programme.

"I would prefer to call it under-nutrition," said paediatrician M. Venugopal. "It is not the non-availability of food, but little awareness about the kind of food that should be taken. Actually, the fish intake helps overcome lack of nutrition in other foods."

Dr. Venugopal said that there lurks the danger of such malnutrition, as the general tendency is to assess only the upper-class nutritional patterns.

There are incidences of stunted growth because of lack of nutrition, he said.

Awareness programmes

He said that awareness programmes need to be taken up by the primary health centres and the anganwadis should be properly utilised too.

The secretary of the Indian Academy of Paediatrician, K.C. George, said that the results of the sub-survey needed to be probed further to get data on a lot of parameters.

The survey is based on the simple height and weight ratio classification.

Calorie intake and the activity of the child needs to be properly assessed, apart from an examination to detect any malnutrition symptoms, to arrive at a proper conclusion regarding malnutrition, he said.

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