Nutritional Status of Indian Population North Western Region

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Preface The Director General, Anthropological Survey of India thought of initiation of a research project entitled Nutritional Status of Indian Population (NSIP) in the Seventh Five Year Plan (1987-1992). It was in 1988 when Shri Malay Kumar Banerjee, Anthropologist (P) and Sri Subodh Kumar Biswas, Research Associate (Biochemistry) were given the responsibility for the formulation of the project. After the initial formulation of the project, the academic formats were circulated to various scholars of the survey as well as to outside scholars of National Institute of Nutrition for their comments and suggestions. Sri Banerjee and Dr. R.S. Mann, the then Joint Director, attended the second meeting of the steering group of Nutrition on 5th July, 1989 at New Delhi, which was chaired by Prof. PN. Srivastava, member of the Commission. Later on Sri M.K. Banerjee, Anthropologist (P) and Dr. K.K. Bhattacharya, Biochemist were made coordinators of the project. Before giving a final shape to the project, a pilot survey was conducted in the year 1989 in Raipur and Bilaspur, Madhya Pradesh (now Chattisgarh) by a team consisting of Dr. (Smt) Sampa Gangopadhyay and Smt Sheela Das Gupta under the leadership of Sri Banerjee.

Introduction In India, researches on nutrition began in the first decade of 20th century and basically remain confined among the prisoners and army personels, McCay was the pioneer. In the year 1911, the Indian Research Fund Association initiated research on disease and their preventions. During 1928- 29 McCarrison established the Nutritional Research Laboratories to facilitate the researchers. Aykroyd and Krishnan in the year 1937 initiated the diet survey to understand the status. These techniques helped us to find out the drawbacks of the studies on dietary pattern. Earlier Indian anthropologists studied food and food habits of different ethnic groups but to day, they also study the nutritional pattern and nutrition deficiency diseases. It is well-know that we, the Indians, generally consume carbohydrate rich diet, whereas, the people of western countries consume protein rich diet and by this they surpasses the Indians as regard to physical fitness. McCarrison is of opinion that the population groups of western countries "are long lived, vigorous youth and age, capable of great endurance and enjoy a remarkable freedom from disease in general. Their diets are the unsophisticated food of nature and the healthiest diet of the mankind" (Sengupta 1953). The consumption of diet, is an important phenomenon and it is controlled by the biosphere of the region. Such metabolic changes which are related with the nutritional adaptations of the population group concern were observed by various authors among the people who consume diet with different proportion of the basic nutrients (Hinsworth 1934, 1936, Drury et al. 1959, Vaughan et al. 1956). According to their observations some are habituated with high protein rich diet while others consume carbohydrate rich diet. The Eskimo and the African populations are the glaring example of the aforesaid variation.

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