NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF TRIBAL WOMEN: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY AMONG SANTALMUNDA TRIBES OF NORTH 24TH PARGANAS DISTRICT OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Joyeta Ghosh

Volume : V, Issue : VII, July - 2016

NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF TRIBAL WOMEN: AN EPIDEMIOLOGICAL STUDY AMONG SANTALMUNDA TRIBES OF NORTH 24TH PARGANAS DISTRICT OF WEST BENGAL, INDIA

Joyeta Ghosh

Abstract :

Women constitute substantial population in any society and their statistics reflects the type of society and cultures they live in. Thus for studying the intake of a society analysis of women�s position in terms of their status and role becomes significant. Tribal women in India are at a great disadvantage due to illiteracy and ignorance ; the picture is same at West Bengal also. Objective of the present study is to analyze the nutritional status among Santal–Munda tribal women residing at rural area of Amdanga block; North 24th Parganas district, West Bengal. In this study most of them are having normal BMI [76.27 %] but quite a few of them were found to be overweight [4.23 %] as well as under nutrition was also prevalent [19.49 %] among these tribal women with 6.8% severity. The present analysis indicate that the prevalence of undernutrition is still a major problem. In addition, there was also an emerging trend for overweight/obesity, thereby indicating a double burden of malnutrition as observed in other ethnic group of this developing country