Health and Personal Hygiene, Food Consumption Pattern and BMI (Body Mass Index) of slum dwellers

Arvind Kumar; Dr. Piyush Malaviya

Volume : IV, Issue : VII, July - 2015

Health and Personal Hygiene, Food Consumption Pattern and BMI (Body Mass Index) of slum dwellers

Arvind Kumar, Dr. Piyush Malaviya

Abstract :

<p>&nbsp;The study was conducted to analyze health and personal Hygiene, Food Consumption Pattern and BMI (Body Mass Index) among slum dwellers of Transport Nagar, Narwal, Jammu (J&amp;K). The dwellers were in the favour of ban on marriage at an early age but in real scenario most of them got married in that age. Domiciliary deliveries were preferred and carried out under the guidance of untrained workers. Awareness about the antenatal and post natal care was negligible among the slum dwellers and the immunization status of the children was also very low. Unhealthy habits such as alcohol consumption, smoking and tobacco chewing also prevailed in majority of the individuals. Due to lack of purchasing power, the food consumed by the slum dwellers was unhealthy and unbalanced. Items like milk, fruit and egg were almost absent from their diet, which resulted in malnutrition among them. 52.21% of the respondents were having normal weight (BMI=18.5&ndash;25), 39.83% were underweight (BMI=16&ndash;18.5) and 7.96% belonged to severely underweight group (BMI&lt;16)</p>