Ramanathapuram district has taken up measures to contain malnutrition among children through continuous monitoring by health workers, said Collector J. U. Chandrakala.
After inaugurating an awareness exhibition in connection with National Nutrition Month festival, the Collector said that 5.57% of the 72,368 children in the age group of zero to six years were found to be underweight.
Similarly, 0.47% of them were found to have severely acute malnutrition issue.
“We are trying to create awareness among the people and health workers like village health nurses, anganwadi workers and women health workers about malnutrition,” the Collector said.
They were being educated about eating health food. “We have already taken up food fortification through anganwadis for children and supply of iron tablets for adolescent children,” Ms. Chandrakala said.
Similarly, pregnant women were being advised to go for institutional delivery. Lactating mothers were encouraged to breast-feed their children so that the babies overcome the issue of being underweight.
Health workers who were making door-to-door visit were supplying supplementary food like groundnut chakkis.
“We are continuously monitoring all family members and recording how many of them have overcome malnutrition,” she added.
Published - September 01, 2021 09:03 pm IST
