My
Summer in Mysore has been spent at Vivekananda Memorial Hospital, conducting a
malnutrition study in children aged 6 to 60 months in the non-tribal areas of
HD Kote Taluk. Upon my arrival in Sargur, I was amazed and a little nervous at
the amount of freedom I had to really work with my mentors and create a study
that was completely my own. My first task was to create a means by which to
assess a child’s individual nutritional status and, by doing so, to identify the
prevalence of child malnutrition in the area. In order to accomplish this goal,
I measured height, weight, and Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) in 138
children. I then went on to investigate the effects of malnutrition on the
achievement of developmental milestones in children ages 3-5 years. The
resulting modified Denver II Test focused on simple tasks such as fine motor
skills, gross motor skills, language skills, and social skills.
My
work was conducted at anganwadi centres, which are similar to American
preschools. They are found in nearly every village at the taluk, and they are
fantastic resources for children and expectant mothers alike. The centres
provide milk and simple meals such as rice and sambhar, a traditional South
Indian vegetable soup. Occasionally, they provide eggs as well. This is
crucial, as nutrition is one of the three major factors that impact a child’s
development, along with genes and environment. What a child consumes during
early childhood has a direct effect on their learning capability during later
childhood stages and adulthood. Foods such as eggs, rich in essential fatty
acids, proteins, choline, vitamins A and B12, deliver what is referred to as a
holistic package or “food matrix,” and is linked to improved absorption and
metabolism. A study published in 2017 in Pediatrics,
showed that early consumption of eggs improved linear growth and reduced
stunting among infants introduced to eggs beginning at 6 months (Lannotti et
al. 2017). The centres are also crucial resources for mothers, as they can
obtain proper nutrition and supplementation to combat against maternal anemia,
as well as access counselling regarding their birthing plans and antenatal
care.
I
certainly brought some assumptions to this project, whether they were conscious
or unconscious. I think that Americans are shown a very specific image of
malnutrition assuming they do not make an effort to delve deeper in to the
issue. We are shown malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa, and we are usually
shown wasted or underweight-for-height children. However, India has a higher
rate of child malnutrition than sub-Saharan Africa, and these children exhibit
a wide range of symptoms. Marasmic malnutrition is characterized by emaciation,
while other issues such as Kwashiorkor are marked by edema, which can make the
child appear larger. Additionally, micronutrient deficiencies cause an entirely
different spectrum of physical symptoms. For example, children who are
deficient in Iron, B12, or Folic Acid are at a heightened risk of becoming anemic.
In girls and women, this is a larger issue because anemia during pregnancy can
cause a whole host of medical problems for both the mother and the child.
I hope that I have accomplished some relevant
work that provides more information on how nutrition affects the children of anganwadi
centres. Using the WHO Child Growth Standards Median to calculate each child’s
respective Z Scores, my report identified that the prevalence of moderate form of underweight, stunting, and wasting
was 31.2 percent , 26.1 percent, and 23.2 percent, respectively and severe form
of underweight, stunting, and wasting was 10.9 percent, 10.1 percent, and 6.5
percent, respectively. Additionally, it was found that both severely and
moderately undernourished children performed significantly worse than nourished
children when taking the Denver II Test (p<0.05). I am very proud of the
work the research team was able to produce this Summer, and I believe that the work
is incredibly important because it demonstrated a suggested relationship
between a child’s nutritional status and his or her ability to maximize
cognitive development during a crucial growth period.
1.
Lora L. Iannotti, Chessa K.
Lutter, Christine P. Stewart, Carlos Andres Gallegos Riofrío, Carla Malo,
Gregory Reinhart, Ana Palacios, Celia Karp, Melissa Chapnick, Katherine Cox,
William F. Waters. Eggs in Early Complementary Feeding and Child
Growth: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Pediatrics, 2017; 140
(1): e20163459 DOI: 10.1542/peds.2016-3459
2.
Washington University in St. Louis. "Eggs improve
biomarkers related to infant brain development." ScienceDaily.
ScienceDaily, 20 December 2017.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171220140605.htm>.
