ASSESMENT OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN RESIDING IN ORPHAN HOUSE

The practice of placing deprived children having minimum or no emotional and material resources, in orphanage has since long been prevailing in socio-economically poor Asian countries.

The main objective of the research was to determine nutritional status of food consumption patterns and dietary intake of orphanage children. The study design followed was cross-sectional descriptive epidemiological study. The study was conducted in an orphan house in Faisalabad. A total of forty children, 20 boys and 20 girls, age group 10 – 16 years were selected. Methods included on site observation, completion of standard questionnaire and anthropometric measurements.

According to BMI score, 80% of children were under weight, 2.5% were overweight whereas only 17.5% were in the normal age. The indicator of weight / height percentage (wasting) showed that only 20% of children had adequate nutrition while the remaining 80% were nutritionally deficient (malnutrition). They were deficient in macronutrients. The nutritional deficiency makes children vulnerable to diarrheal disease, acute respiratory disease and other infections.

With respect to weight for age the situation indicated only 20% of the children were found to be normal. On clinical examination 92.5 percent of children were normal pertaining to HB level (above average), regarding personal hygiene 77.5% had average status of hygiene while as rest were suffering from dis-pigmentation of hair and mottled dental enamel. Results indicated that dietary intake was deficient for majority of nutrients when compared to RDA for a l l age groups which may be linked to poor planning of menus in orphanages.

Ke Y Words: Malnutrition, Wasting, Anthropometric, BMI.