Author(s): Kushwaha Pratibha and Paul Virginia

Abstract:
The term ‘nutritional anemia’ encompasses all pathological conditions in which the blood hemoglobin concentration drops to an abnormally low level, due to a deficiency in one or several nutrients. An abnormally low hemoglobin level due to pathological condition(s) is defined as anemia. Iron deficiency is one of the most common among school going female children, but not the only cause of anemia. Other causes of anemia include chronic infections, particularly malaria, hereditary hemoglobinopathies, and folic acid deficiency. It is worth noting that multiple causes of anemia can coexist in an individual or in a population and contribute to the severity of the anemia. Anemia is a serious condition that impacts cognitive development. The effects of iron deficiency that are observed in the first six months of life can lead to permanent brain damage. An afflicted child is likely to remain vulnerable to infection and continue to have lower immunity toward infection throughout childhood. Also, the overall appetite is reduced and this vicious cycle perpetuates a series of events that must be stopped, to ensure the child's health Although it is well established that iron-deficiency anemia among children is responsible for higher morbidity and subsequent mortality, systemic studies to quantify them are practically difficult for a number of epidemiological reasons, and therefore, are not available. Iron-deficiency anemia rarely exists in isolation, and to disentangle the proportion of the role played by anemia from the total level of malnutrition and other precipitating factors, although desirable, is difficult to get at the community level.