Nutritional Status and Dietary Intake of Children from Urban and Rural Schools Providing Mid-Day Meal

Hunger and poverty form a barrier to education, forcing children to forego schooling and take up menial jobs for survival. To illustrate, an estimated 63per cent of India's children go to sleep hungry every night, while 50per cent of those between the ages of 6 and 14 years (40 million children) do not have access to primary education. Thus, a vicious cycle emerges: the long-term solution to the hunger problem is education, but education is lost on starving children. The important role of school based health services and school feeding programs in the cognitive development and school performance of children is well recognized and documented. In order to save the children from the maladies of chronic malnutrition, the central and state government have embarked on several nutrition intervention programs, the oldest among which is the widely operating school lunch program.