Nutritional Status of 3 Years to 18 Years of Age among the Khasi Children in the State of Meghalaya

The present study was conducted on West Khasi Hills District of the State of Meghalaya, India. Which is predominantly inhabited by the Khasis tribe which has a distinct characteristic of being a Matriarchal Society methodology A cross sectional study of 495 males and557 females were included for this study, Three Anthropometric indices i. e. weight-for-age, height-for-age and BMI-for-age are used for the assessment of the nutritional status. Finding In case of weight, the prevalence of underweight for all sexes and ages was found to be 40.11 %. The present findings indicate that there are no differences between the sexes with respect to the prevalence of underweight, although it was slightly higher in boys than in girls and about 52.28 % of children were stunted, Whereas in height there are no statistical differences between the sexes with respect to the prevalence of stunting, although it was higher in girls than in boys. However, the prevalence of stunting in the higher age group was much higher than that in the lower age group for both boys and girls, and the differences between the two major age groups are highly statistically significant in both boys (2 = 19.86, D. F. = 1, p less than0.0001) and girls (2 = 32.24, D. F. = 1, p less than0.0001). Conclusion We may conclude that the present population is likely to be characterized by a very high prevalence of underweight and stunting with a high prevalence of wasting