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

Received: 28 February 2015     Accepted: 12 March 2015     Published: 24 March 2015
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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, socio-demographic 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.

Published in International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences (Volume 4, Issue 3)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11
Page(s) 240-245
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2015. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Nutritional Status, Street Children, BMI, Dhaka

References
[1] UNICEF (2007) Street Children. http://www.unicef.org, January 2008
[2] Aptekar L (1994) Street Children in the Developing World: A review of their condition.Cross Cultural Research, 28 (30): 195 – 224
[3] Hatley A, Huser A. (2005) Identification of Street Children: Characteristics of street children in Bamako and Accra. FAFO Report 474
[4] Conticini, Alessandro, Hulme, David (2005) Escaping Violence, Seeking Freedom: Why children in Bangladesh migrate to the street, global poverty research group (gprg), economic & social reseach council (e.s.r.c.)
[5] Rita P, Isma W, Mira D, Dadang S (2010) Nutrients intake and nutritional status of street children in bandung, Journal of Nutrition and Food, 5(3): 177–183
[6] Appropriate Resources for Improving Street Children Environment (ARISE), Shamanic (2004) Child Right week, October 5, 2004.
[7] Lassoer J (2004) The UNDP Resident Representative in Bangladesh, Un Convention on the right of the child (CRC), 1990, Shamanic; Child Rights week 2004, October 5, 2004.
[8] Estimation of the Size of Street Children and their Projection for Major Urban Areas of Bangladesh (2005), Cited from UNICEF 2009
[9] Hissers K, (1995) CWA Intern Students; child worker in urban Bangladesh, August, 1995
[10] Ahmed KS, Uddin MM, Islam, S Huq, Nazmul M, Nehar S, N Z,O Huq, (2003) A baseline survey of street children in Bangladesh, FREPD, Dhaka, Bangladesh
[11] Habib F, Nayaib R, Salma, Khan K, Jamal A, Cheema AA, Imam AN (2007) Occupational health hazards among street children.Biomedica,23 (16) Jul-Dec 2007/Bio-16(A)
[12] Thapa K, Ghatane S, Rimal SP (2009) Health Problems of street children of Dharan municipality. Kathmandu University Medical Journal, 7 (3): 272-279
[13] Neelam R, Priya W (2014) Assessment of Nutritional Status of Street Children in Selected Wards of an Urban Area, International Journal of Interdisciplinary and Multidisciplinary Studies (IJIMS),1: 136-143.
[14] ICDDR,B (2010) Street dwellers’ preference for health care services in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Dhaka: ICDDR, B.
[15] Ayaya S, Esami F (2001) Health problems of street children in Eldoret, Kenya.East African Medical Journal.78(12): 624-9
[16] Mufune P (2000) Street Youth in Southern Africa. International Social Science Journal, 5 (164): 233–243.
[17] Mahan LK, S Escott-Stump (2007) Krause's Food, Nutrition, & Diet Therapy. Elsevier.
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  • APA Style

    Mesbah Uddin Talukder, Md. Mahbubul Alam, Md. Ariful Islam, Gowranga Kumar Paul, Md. Torikul Islam, et al. (2015). Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City. International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences, 4(3), 240-245. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11

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    ACS Style

    Mesbah Uddin Talukder; Md. Mahbubul Alam; Md. Ariful Islam; Gowranga Kumar Paul; Md. Torikul Islam, et al. Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City. Int. J. Nutr. Food Sci. 2015, 4(3), 240-245. doi: 10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11

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    AMA Style

    Mesbah Uddin Talukder, Md. Mahbubul Alam, Md. Ariful Islam, Gowranga Kumar Paul, Md. Torikul Islam, et al. Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City. Int J Nutr Food Sci. 2015;4(3):240-245. doi: 10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11,
      author = {Mesbah Uddin Talukder and Md. Mahbubul Alam and Md. Ariful Islam and Gowranga Kumar Paul and Md. Torikul Islam and Farhana Akther},
      title = {Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City},
      journal = {International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences},
      volume = {4},
      number = {3},
      pages = {240-245},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijnfs.20150403.11},
      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, socio-demographic 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.},
     year = {2015}
    }
    

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  • TY  - JOUR
    T1  - Study on the Nutritional Status of the Street Children at Shabagh Area of Dhaka City
    AU  - Mesbah Uddin Talukder
    AU  - Md. Mahbubul Alam
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    AU  - Md. Torikul Islam
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    T2  - International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences
    JF  - International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences
    JO  - International Journal of Nutrition and Food Sciences
    SP  - 240
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    PB  - Science Publishing Group
    SN  - 2327-2716
    UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijnfs.20150403.11
    AB  - 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, socio-demographic 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.
    VL  - 4
    IS  - 3
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Author Information
  • Department of Food Technology and Nutritional Science, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail, Bangladesh

  • Department of Food Technology and Nutritional Science, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail, Bangladesh

  • Department of Food Technology and Nutritional Science, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail, Bangladesh

  • Department of Statistics, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail, Bangladesh

  • Institute of Nutrition and Food Science, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

  • Department of Food Technology and Nutritional Science, Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University, Tangail, Bangladesh

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