Gender differences in nutritional status among the adult Meiteis of Cachar district of Assam, India

Year 2013, Volume: 4 Issue: 2, 36 - 44, 31.12.2014

A. F. Gulenur İslam Barbhuiya Rekha Das

Abstract

The present paper intends to study the gender differences in nutritional status with reference
to age, education and family income. The data have been collected by household census method
and nutritional anthropometry among 264 adult Meiteis (123 males, and 141 females) of 20 to
79 years age of Cachar District of Assam, India. The study reveals that more than 30
percentage of the populations are suffering from chronic energy deficiency (CED)
malnutrition (males=27.6%, females=33.3%) while more than 7 percentage of the adults are
battling with over-nutrition (males=8.1%, females=6.4%). Chi-square test doesn’t show any
significant (P=0.356) difference in nutritional status between males and females. Although
slight positive association exists between body mass index (BMI) and age (rxy=0.056) but BMI
of the adult Meiteis show significant positive association with year of schooling (rxy=0.143,
P<0.05) and annual family income (rxy=0.215, P<0.01).

Keywords

Adult, sex, age group, educational status, income category

References

• Askovic B, Kirchengast S. (2012) Gender differences in nutritional behavior and weight status during early and late adolescence. Anthropol Anz 69:289-304.