Dur Afshar Agha, Sajid Maqbool, Sameer Anwar.
Is poverty or lack of nutrition awareness the main cause of malnutrition in children?.
Pak Paed J Jan ;29(2):63-7.

Background: Malnutrition is an impairment of health, resulting from deficiency, excess or imbalance of nutrients. Poverty and ignorance are leading causes. Even educated parents lack awareness of the need to provide nutritious food to their children. Objectives: 1. To establish the association of poverty and lack of nutrition awareness to malnutrition in children. 2. To determine the effect of education of mothers on the nutritional status of the children. Setting: - This study was conducted in the Department of Preventive Paediatrics at The Children`s Hospital Lahore, from 16th June 2004 to 13th July 2004. Patients and Methods: Two hundred children aged 1-10 years, labeled with a diagnosis of malnutrition by their referring physician, were selected for this cross-sectional study. Mothers were interviewed using a questionnaire, in which by a 24-hour dietary-recall method the patient`s nutritional status was assessed. Information about the education of the parents and habit of giving pocket money to the children for snacks was also included. Results: The analysis showed that 66.42% malnourished children belonged to the lower income group (P <0.05). It came to light that most of the mothers were unaware of the role of balanced diet and nutritional value of different foods. 71.53% parents of the malnourished children were in the habit of giving pocket money to them (P <0.05).

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