Hyderabad: The study revealing malnutrition among a large number of government school students in the capital city of Hyderabad has also shown that the present constitution of mid-day meal cannot be a solution for malnutrition for all age groups.
Mr Prakash Babu Kodali from the School of Health System Studies, TISS, Mumbai, one of the researchers who conducted the study in Hyderabad, said, “The mid-day meal scheme is the sole source of essential protein and nutrients for most of the children in government schools. However it is not able to meet the nutritional needs, especially of adolescents as is clearly shown in our research. As adolescence is an age of rapid development in the body, there is a need for improving nutritional status of mid-day meals with focus on adolescent children.”
Dr A. Laxmaiah, head of community studies, National Institute of Nutrition, said, the mid-day meal scheme itself could not be the sole solution to malnutrition because it was meant to provide students with one third of a day’s nutritional requirements and half of protein requirements.
“Creation of awareness among families on nutrition, effective access of food grains and other policy level changes are required to tackle malnutrition,” Dr Laxmaiah said.
“Two years back, the NIN had suggested using iron-fortified rice in mid-day meals programme which had proved to be a success in increasing the nutrient levels in our tests. The plan has not been taken up because such rice is not grown by many farmers and hence is not easily available,” he said.
