Nutritional status and level of KAP about food & hygiene among the illiterate and primary educated women in Monga areas, Bangladesh

Abstract The nutritional status, life style & food intake patterns of selected Monga areas, Bangladesh was assessed by a cross sectional study among the 372 households. Economic hardship is extensive in the Monga areas, highly agriculture-dependent and disproportionate size of day-laborers. Literacy rate was very poor in both male and female. About 55.4% of the respondent's husbands were day labor/ farm labor and only 9.7% skilled labor was the main profession. The mean monthly income and expenditure of the family was Tk. 3963 and 3615 only with the standard deviation of Tk. 542 and 457only respectively. Nutritional status is also indicates the life style situation of that areas. The prevalence of malnutrition among the respondents were 8.3%, 14.8% and 55.9% were in CED3, CED2 and CED1 respectively. However, about twenty percent (19.6%) of them were normal and 1.4% was overweight. About 95.2% respondents collected food from the local market. Only 4.8% were collected food from their agricultural farm. The presence of egg and meat sources, milk sources and fruits and vegetables sources of the respondents were 32.5, 34.9 and 59.4% respectively.