FOOD EXPENDITURE PATTERN OF TRIBAL’S OF BULDHANA DISTRICT, MAHARASHTRA

Dr. Mrs. Swati Chande

Volume : VI, Issue : VI, June - 2016

FOOD EXPENDITURE PATTERN OF TRIBAL’S OF BULDHANA DISTRICT, MAHARASHTRA

Dr. Mrs. Swati Chande

Abstract :

 India has the largest tribal population in the world perhaps next to Africa.’ These tribal’s have their own socioeconomic and cultural system and are mostly illiterate, ignorant, economically backward and have little awareness about hygienic living and nutritional food intake. Further limited means of subsistence, addiction to alcohol, marriages at adolescent age, early pregnancies low birth weight babies are factors which adversely affect their health status. Similarly they are ignorant about how much to spent on food and other items. It is observed from the data that tribal’s from the study area i.e., Buldhana District where the tribal population is 115,000 (Revenue Division TRTI, Pune) had good income and hence it was of profound interest to study the expenditure pattern. It was observed that the results are in contrast to observation normally reported in rural families where in a major percentage of income is shown to be spent on food items. This is perhaps due to the fact that the bulk of millets that they were consuming were either on their own farms or given in barter to the labour in return of their services. It is duty of the nutritionist and dietitians from the periphery that with proper nutrition education about food and their nutritional importance in maintaining health should be explain to the tribal’s so that they can spend on right food items and stay in good health and vigor.