Investigation of Nutritional and Health Status of Indian Rural Hill Farm Women

Abstract

In hill region of India, women play a major role in agricultural production, livestock and cottage industries and remain busy from dawn to dusk to collect water, fuel wood and fodder which adversely affects their health. In order to study nutritional status of farm women information regarding food intake was obtained from 120 farm women from high, mid and low hills using 24 hours recall method with interview schedule cum observation worksheet. Physiological characteristics and anthropometric measurements related to nutrition like weight, height, skin fold measurements, blood pressure, heart rate, energy expenditure rate, VO‚ max and pulse rate of subjects were recorded. Results indicated that diet of farm women of high, mid and low hill region was inadequate in terms of energy, protein and -carotene. It was also found that calcium and -carotene consumption by farm women during winter was significantly higher. On the basis of BMI, about 45 per cent subjects were found Chronic Energy Deficient (CED) and 22.5 percent were in the category of Low-Normal. Only 30 percent subjects were in the category of Normal.