Designing of Nutrient Dense Foods for Special Children and Evaluation of its Impact

Abstract

Intellectual disability is one of the significant clinical and socially relevant conditions that affect 3 per cent of the total paediatric population. Disabled children are at high risk of developing malnutrition, which has a devastating effect on health status and can interfere with their functional skills and educational achievement. The most common problem associated with malnutrition in disabled children is inadequate nutrient intake, either due to feeding problems or poor feeding knowledge among care providers. Therefore, preserving their good health and improving the state or quality of life with proper nutrition and comprehensive nutritional care is vital. In the Indian context, there is also a dearth of research evidence to suggest the effect of nutrition in intellectually disabled children. Under this pretext, the present study titles Designing of Nutrient Dense Foods for Special Children and Evaluation of its Impact was undertaken with the objectives to; assess the nutritional profile of intellectually disabled children, optimize and formulate composite flour using millets, whole gram, nuts, and seeds, standardize and prepare traditional nutrient-dense food products using composite flour, plan a cyclic menu and evaluate the impact of nutrient-dense food products on the nutritional status and functional skills of intellectually disabled children. The study was conducted on intellectually disabled children aged 9-16 years from 8 Special Schools located in Madurai city. The study consists of three phases. In phase-I of the study, an interview schedule was prepared to collect the socio-economic and nutritional status of the subjects. The children s nutritional status assessment was carried out by standard methods (A-Anthropometric, B-Bio chemical, C-Clinical, and D-Dietary). In phase-II, the Response Surface Methodology tool was used to optimize millet mix (pearl millet, foxtail millet, roasted Bengal gram).