Iron deficiency anaemia and effect of nutrition education on change in dietary behavior among the adolescent girls of tea garden area in Nagaon District, Assam

Abstract

Anaemia is a manifestation of under-nutrition and poor dietary intake of iron is a serious public Health problem among pregnant woman, infants, young children and adolescents. The prevalence the prevalence of Anaemia is high in developing countries than the developed countries due to poverty, inadequate diet, high incidence of communicable diseases, Pregnancy /lactation and low immunity. India has the highest prevalence of Anaemia among women, including adolescent, worldwide. Between 60 to 70% of Indian adolescent girls are anemic (Hemoglobin (Hb) <12g/dl). Therefore, to address this strategic gap, the researcher would like to conduct a participatory nutrition education and intervention on Iron rich diet study to improve the dietary behavior status, and reduce the prevalence of anemia among unmarried adolescent girls 1 .The main objective of the study was to assess the haemoglobin level among adolescent girls before nutrition education on Iron rich food. To assess the dietary practices among the adolescent tea garden Girls in selected Tea Garden of Nagaon District, Assam and to find out the effectiveness of Nutrition education on changing dietary practices among the adolescent girls of Tea Garden, Nagaon District Assam The research approach is Descriptive Evaluative approach and Research design adopted was pre-experimental one group pre-test post-test design. The total sample for the study is 800. Hence the for the Present pilot study the Researches has collected the Data from 10% of the total Population i.e. 80 numbers of Adolescent girls of Lungsung and Chapanala Tea Garden area of Nagaon District. The study results shows that food consumption habit mean score in Baseline assessment is higher than the Endline assessment Paired ‘t’ value is 31.54 which was significant at p< 0.05 level. There is significant association between the pretest level of Hb with the selected Demographic Variable such as age, religion, working status, water sanitation, consumption of Iron Tablets and Consumption of Albendazole tablet. As the tabulated value is less than the calculated value of Chi-square at p< 0.05 level.