Page 97 - IJPS-2-1

Sanjit Sarkar

household, only the youngest child was included in the survey. We also collected anthropometry data,
whereby we measured the height and weight of the children and mothers along with their age. For
measuring weight, digital scales were employed, ensuring requisite accuracy. Both mother and child
were weighed twice and the average weight was recorded, in order to minimize measurement error.
Children aged <24 months were weighed while being held by their mothers, after which the mother’s
weight was subtracted to derive the weight of the child. When measuring height, mother sand chil-
dren aged >24 months were asked to stand against straight a wall, whereby an inch tape was utilized
to record their height. Children aged <24 months were measured while lying down.
2.2 Child Anthropometry

The outcome of interest for the present study is child malnutrition, classified as either underweight
status, wasting, or stunting. The corresponding scores, i.e., weight-for-age Z-score (WAZ), weight-
for-height Z-score (WHZ), and height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) were calculated based on the WHO
new growth standard(WHO, 2006) using the WHO-Anthro software. For the purpose of the present
investigation, underweight status, wasting, and stunting were defined by WAZ, WHZ, and HAZ
scores that were more than –2*Standard Deviation (–2SD) away from the WHO standard reference
for the general population, respectively.
2.3 Independent Variables

Key independent variables that influence the child’s nutritional outcomes included age,gender, reli-
gion, caste, and monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE)status of the children, moth-
er’s body mass index (BMI), and birth order of the child. The inclusion of these variables was guid-
ed by approaches adopted in extant studies (Bisai, Bose and Ghosh, 2008; Debnath and
Bhattacharjee, 2014; Khan and Raza, 2014; Talapalliwar and Garg, 2014). The age of the child was
recorded in completed months based on the mother’s report and was categorized as 6−11, 12−23,
24−35, 36−47, and 48−59 months. We treated the child’s gender as a dichotomous variable (male vs
female). The child’s religion was categorized into Hindu and Muslim, whereas their caste was cate-
gorized into four groups: scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST), other backward classes (OBC),
and general; based on the household head’s report. We measured the household’s economic status
using the MPCE—classified into five quintiles. The MPCE was constructed using the house-
hold consumer expenditure schedule adopted by the National Sample Survey (NSS, 2010). Ex-
penditure items included food, fuel, conveyance, medicinal, beverages, clothing, and other non-food
daily items. For most of the items, the reference period was the preceding 30 days; however, for
some less frequent purchases, such as clothing, education, or medicines, the last 365 days served as
the reference period. Expenditure on domestic consumption incurred by households was standard-
ized based on the pertinent reference period and was divided by the family size to arrive at the
MPCE. We measured the mother’s nutritional status using the BMI, which is the recommended
measure for assessing adult malnutrition. The World Health Organization (WHO) defined BMI as
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“weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared (kg/m )”. Based on their BMI, mothers
were classified as thin (<18.5), normal (18.5–24.9), and obese (>25). Birth order refers to the order
st
nd
rd
in which the child included in the study was born,i.e., 1 , 2 , 3 , or greater.
2.4 Statistical Analyses
First, we carried out bivariate analyses to elucidate the differentials in child nutritional indices (i.e.,
underweight status, wasting, and stunting) with respect to the child’s demographic and socio- eco-
nomic background characteristics. To test the significance of associations between child nutritional
2
indices and the examined background characteristics, we applied χ tests for variables with two cate-
gories. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and ‘t-test’ were also employed to test the statistical
significance of the difference in mean scores pertaining to the three nutritional indices for variables

International Journal of Population Studies | 2016, Volume 2, Issue 1 91