Nutritional Deprivation in the State of Jharkhand

Abstract

Under-nutrition is an ugly face of deprivation witnessed in the country that is experienced by adults and children alike. The phenomenon of under-nutrition has a regional divide within the country and makes population groups of specific characteristics and identity more vulnerable than others. With this pretext, the present study is a modest attempt at understanding the dynamics of the nutritional deprivation in the state of Jharkhand with the dual distinction of poverty and predominance of tribal population.

The unit level National Family Health Survey data was employed to report the under-nutrition among children according to the three anthropometric measures- stunting, wasting and underweight. Logistic regression was run to analyse the effect of various predictor variables on the three measures.  Almost 50% of children were stunted, 57% under-weight and 35% wasted in the state. Not surprisingly, it was commonly the children who belonged to tribal communities and hailed from poorer households. The result of the multivariate analysis reveals that age, mother’s education status and household wealth status determined stunting among the children in Jharkhand; whereas for underweight it was mother’s education status, her nutritional status and household status. Finally for wasted, mother’s nutritional status, schedule caste category and her employment status had severe influence.

Keywords: Under-nutrition, deprivation, anthropometric, stunting, wasting, underweight, tribal, Jharkhand