Author(s): Dr. Purba Chattopadhyay

Abstract:
In Indian context, mothers have the central role in household as regards to the basic nourishment and care of the child. In this regard mother’s self-esteem and gender attitudes play a crucial role in governing the type of intra-house-hold allocation of basic resources. In this perspective the present paper looks into the gender attitudes and self-esteem of 300 rural mothers from three districts of West Bengal. And draw a comparison of the same between the tribal (santhal) and non-tribal population. Secondly, the paper looks into the impact of the above on the nutrition and health security of 465 school going children at primary level, in the age group of 5 to 12 years, under the ICDS midday meal scheme, by applying Clinical Nutrition Survey Chart; 24-hr recall method and Food Frequency Questionnaire, health and immunization records and expenditure on education. Nutrient intake and consumption frequency of all the 6 food groups, like Meats & Protein, Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, Dairy, Fats & Oils, were collected for the afore-mentioned sample. In the above context the paper focused on the comparative study of food and nutrition security along with access to basic health and education facilities of the santhal and non-santhal population. In this SPSS-17 was used for the descriptive statistics, t-test, χ2 for association and odd ratio calculation. It was seen that santhal mothers had better gender attitudes and self-esteem at 0.05% level of significance. Further, it was seen that the intra-household resource allocation was more egalitarian in case of santhal population with respect to the general population at 0.05% level of significance.