A COMPARITIVE STUDY ON NUTRITIONAL, PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN RESIDING AT HOME AND AT DAYCARE CENTRE

Nishu Gupta and Dr. Divya Sanghi. Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 5 (6), 1579-1581 1580 the caretaker, develops a fair degree of physical and mental abilities by the first year. The child developed the ability of speech and is able to express himself. He attains a fairly good motor development and starts walking and holds objects. By this time he also develops a strong emotional and psychological relationship with his near and dear ones 1 .
Cognitive development is a term that covers human perception, thinking, and learning. Nutrition, genes, and environment are three major factors impacting cognitive development. However, the role of good nutrition in child development and learning is important. Nutrition during the early years of a child's life is linked to performance in later years. Many research studies focus on the relationships between breakfast and learning in school-age children; other researchers identified the importance of nutrition at earlier ages. The effect of nutrition on the brain begins before birth-with the nutrition of the mother. Under nutrition resulting negative effects on brain development during pregnancy and the first two years of life may be permanent and irreversible. Breast-feeding appears to lead to higher IQ/cognitive development. Iron is a necessary part of brain tissue. Iron deficiency during the first two years of a child's life is associated with behaviour changes and delayed psychomotor development. Iodine deficiency during early years is associated with reduced cognition and achievement in school-age children. Poorly nourished children have more problems fighting infections. Therefore, they may be sick more often, miss more school, and fail to keep up with classmates. School-age children who ate breakfast did better on performance tests than children with no breakfast 2 .
Day care centre is defined as care for children that take place in a care centre setting, provided by trained or untrained caregivers 3 . The nutritional profile might be different for day care and home residing centres, which can affect their cognitive development. With the above background present study was carried out with the aim to compare nutritional profile, cognitive development and physical growth among day care (DC) and home residing children (HR).

Designs and Methods:-
The study was conducted in Delhi and Faridabad in January 2017. Total 40 subjects were recruited of the age 2-5 years. The Inclusion criteria of the study was 1) age should be 2-5 years, 2) willing to participate in the study and 3) should not be suffering with any chronic disease 4 . A pretested questionnaire was used for data collection. In Anthropometry, z-score was calculated by standard growth charts (Height-weight), nutrient intake was assessed by 24 hrs-dietary recall and cognitive development was analyses by pretested questionnaire (10 items). Statistically analysis was done by using software SPSS 20 version.

Result and Discussion:-
Present study enrolled total 40 children from different location of Delhi-NCR. Out of 40 children 50% were belong to day care (n=20), and 50% were home residing (n=20). 9(45%):11(55%) 11(55%):9 (45%) 0.37 *Statistical analysis performed-age-student 't' test, sexchi-square test Demographic data of all the study subjects were depicted in Table 1. The mean age both the group was not significantly different between both groups (p= 0.29). Similarly, gender distribution in both groups was insignificant. The mean Z-score of DC group was 0.50±1.27 and HR group was 0.90±1.48, (p-value= 0.36) which was insignificant. On statistical analysis of distribution of Z-score in both groups was insignificant as DC group had 55% normal growth whereas HR group had 40% normal growth and very few comes under obese (35% and 50%) and underweight (10% and 10%) in both groups respectively (Table 2). Alshammariet al (2017) conducted a study on growth profile using z-scores and observed a contrast results from present study, the prevalence of 4.73% moderate and 1.54% severe underweight; 6.65% moderate and 2.59% severe stunting; 6.34% moderate and 2.55% severe wasting was present in the study population 4 .