Mitigating Strategies to Combat Malnutrition

Abstract

Malnutrition is the condition that develops when the body is deprived of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients it needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ function. Malnutrition occurs in people who are either under nourished or over nourished. Since these adolescent females are the emcee of upcoming future generation, their health is of utmost importance. The various factors that are revealed in the present study could further be targeted in routine health-care settings through counseling and guidance clinic under the direct supervision of primary-care physicians. In primary health-care settings apart from providing curative services, direct involvement of medical professionals and primary-care physicians in implementation of opportunity strategies like adolescent’s behavioral change toward inculcation of healthy lifestyle, their counseling for optimal physical activities, and augmentation of knowledge regarding importance of proper balanced diet will be the most cost-effective way to deal with the problem. Also, among higher socioeconomic group who use to prefer private medical professionals for health seeking and where the proportion of obese children is comparatively more, these physicians could play a significant role through concurrent counseling of parents and their children to bring out desired behavioral change substantially so as to prevent forthcoming complications associated with over nutrition. Strengthening public health interventions for mild malnutrition cases and vulnerable groups, effective implementation and evaluation of the strategies at the regional level, research on overweight, obesity and its etiological factors and steps for improving socioeconomic development are the prerequisites for tackling malnutrition in India.