Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City

Abstract

Malnutrition is a major health problem; especially in developing countries and it is the gravest single threat to global public health. Malnutrition is by far the major contributor of child mortality across the globe. A non experimental, descriptive action research with a multi-methodological approach study was carried out to assess nutritional status, sociodemographic condition and associated factors of the selected street children of Dhaka City. This study was conducted among 120 street children at Shabagh area in Dhaka city. All of the respondents were boys, and aged between 6-18 years. Methods included on site observation, completion of a standard demographic questionnaire, a validated quantitative food frequency questionnaire and anthropometric measurements. The nutritional status indicated that, 61.7% of the children were underweight and 38.3% of the children were healthy. According to this study about 31.7% were involved with different types of work and also 68.7% were not involved with any kind of work. Majority (87.5%) of the street children ate three times a day followed by another 12.5% having two meals a day.With respect to sources of drinking water, most (63.3%) of the respondents took drinking water from tube wells, while 36.7% of the respondents took drinking water from the WASA/Supply. Most (86.7%) of the respondents washed their hands before eating and 60.8% of them suffered from a disease in the 3 months prior to the study. It is necessary to design interventions that will prevent children from coming to the streets.

<p>Magnitude of Under Nutrition and Associated Factors Among Adolescent Street Children at Jimma Town, South West Ethiopia</p>

“…This study revealed that prevalence of thinness, stunting and both thinness and stunting was 29.2%, 30.4%, and 4.2% respectively. The prevalence of thinness seen at the study area was lower than in the study conducted at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City 33 but nearly similar to the study conducted in southern India. 23 The discrepancy might be due to differences in the setting like: age group at which the study was conducted (6-18 in Dhaka and 8-18 in southern India vs 12-18 in the current study), variation in the denominator and other socioeconomic variables.…”

“…This finding is different from studies conducted elsewhere among general population which states that females were less vulnerable to thinness than males. [33][34][35][36] The reason for the difference may be, that females in the street life have limited involvement with income generating activities, low daily income to purchase food, are less competent to fight and scramble for food from a common pot. Furthermore, in this study 90%, 68%, and 87% of female street inhabitants were skipping one or more daily meal, lived for more than one year in the street and were food insecure respectively.…”

A comprehensive review of the health, hunger, and nutritional status of south and southeast Asian street children

“…They also lack educational opportunities, health care, and access to child welfare services. Street children often suffer from diseases and ailments such as malaria, respiratory tract illnesses, malnutrition, headaches, chest pain, abdominal pain, back pain, blood in the urine, wounds, bruises, diarrhea, dental problems, fever, intestinal parasitic infection, anemia, tonsillitis, hair lice, skin diseases, and HIV/AIDS (Thapa et al, 2009) [58] . Street children working as waste pickers have poor hygiene practices that lead to several health problems (Singh and Chokhandre, 2015) [55] .…”

Health status, status of personal hygiene, causes, and abuse among street children in city Ahmedabad of Gujarat

“…[8,9] Nutritional deficiency is one of the factors that increase the risk of developing infectious diseases to an individual because the body's natural system of immunity has weakened. [10] Children who are on the streets tend to underutilize the existing health services mainly because their daily struggle focuses on getting food and shelter with concerns about their health being secondary, a situation compounded by limited or lack of access to health facilities. [11] …”