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

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, sociodemographic 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.