COMPARISON OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS BETWEEN SANTAL TRIBAL WOMEN AND BENGALI WOMEN OF PURBA MEDINIPUR, WEST BENGAL

Abstract

The study was aimed to evaluate the nutritional status of rural tribal women and to compare them with that of urban non-tribal women. Tribal Santal women were selected from the villages of Ramnagar Block II of Purba Medinipur district and Bengali housewives were selected as non-tribal women from Contai urban areas. The average height for the Santal women was 151.8 ±2.2 cm whereas that of the Bengali women was 155.8 ±3.4 cm. The average body weight for the Santal women was 47.6 ±4.6 kg whereas that of Bengali women was 54.8 ±4.2 kg. The Santal had low socioeconomic status and they were belonged to lower and upper lower category according to the Kupaswami scale. Most of selected Bengali women were belonging to upper and upper middle socioeconomic status. The Santal women consumed significantly lesser amount (p<0.05) of Protein and fat than that of their Bengali counterpart. The energy and carbohydrate intake was also lower in Santal women than that of Bengali women but the difference was not significant. It was observed that about 70% of the total Santal women had normal nourishment while 30 % of them were malnourished. On the other hand all Bengali women were belonging to normal nourishment category. Thus, malnourished status of santal women was due to low socioeconomic status compare to Bengali women.