Growth and nutritional status of the Kamar tribal children of Chhattisgarh

A cross sectional study of the physical growth and nutritional status were made on 393 Kamar children (202 boys and 191 girls), aged 1 to 10 years, in the Raipur and Dhantary districts of Chhattisgarh. The study aimed to find out the growth and nutritional status of the Kamar children, a primitive tribe of Chhattisgarh. Four anthropometric measurements such as height, weight, mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) and head circumference are taken into consideration. All the anthropometric measurements show an increasing trend with age in both sexes but it is not uniform in all the ages. However, when height and weight of the Kamar boys and girls were compared with all India (ICMR) children, the Kamar children (both boys and girls) shows lower weight (lighter) and height (shorter) and the difference are significant for almost all the age group except 7 and 9 years of boys and 4 to 7 years of girls in the case of height. BMI is very low in both the sexes and show 81.03 per cent of boys and 74.87 per cent of girls are suffered from CED-III grade of malnutrition. Socio-economic and educational status of this primitive tribe may be one of the major causes for this poor growth and nutritional status. However, in-depth study is, necessary in order to arrive at any definitive conclusion and to recommend any policy and intervention measure.