THE INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL LITERACY IN DETERMINING NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF THEIR CHILDREN

Riddhi Gupta; Sarmistha Chakrabarti; Suniti Ghosh (Chatterjee)

Volume : V, Issue : XI, November - 2016

THE INFLUENCE OF MATERNAL LITERACY IN DETERMINING NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF THEIR CHILDREN

Riddhi Gupta, Sarmistha Chakrabarti, Suniti Ghosh Chatterjee

Abstract :

Education is considered as a key factor for the empowerment of women. Education improves their chances of employment, facilitates their participation in outer world and also helps in developing better understanding regarding health and hygiene. ?us mothers� education is quite important in the context of child care also. ?e present research work on total 518 mother–child pair aimed to study the influence of maternal literacy in determining their children�s nutritional status. Our data analysis reveals that maternal literacy exerts a significant influence on the two selected anthropometric indices (i.e., Weight for Age and Height for Age) in case of <5 years aged children. But in case of older children (i.e., >5 years age) a definite but non–significant association was found between maternal literacy and their children�s nutritional status (as indicated by Height for Age and Body Mass Index). ?is implies that achieving 100% female literacy will help in promoting the nutritional status of children.