Impact of social class on body fatness among rural pre-school Bengalee Hindu children of Arambagh, West Bengal, India

Body composition is a useful marker for assessing the adiposity of an individual. The amount of body fat (BF) differs with age, sex, environmental conditions and genotype, and is a good indicator of the health and nutritional status of a community. As the subcutaneous fat serves as a reservoir for energy during nutritional deprivation, lower BF in comparison with other studies indicates a lower energy intake by those children, who are affected by their lower socio-economic status. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the impact of socio-economic class, after allowing for sex and age, on body fatness among rural pre-school children of Bengalee Hindu ethnicity of Arambagh, West Bengal, India. The present study was undertaken at 20 Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme centers in Bali Gram Panchayat, Arambagh, Hooghly District of West Bengal, India. A total of 1012 boys and girls (aged 2-6 years) living in these areas were studied. The children were classified into two groups based on their social class: Schedule Castes (SC) and Non-Schedule Castes (NSC). In general, SC comprise socio-economically and educationally deprived individuals. Three-way analysis of variance was used to assess the effect of ethnicity on mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) and sum of skinfolds (SS), allowing for age and sex. There was an increasing age trend in both these variables in both sexes in the two groups. All three factors had a significant effect on MUAC, whereas only age and social class had a significant impact on SS. In the case of MUAC, only one second order interaction (sex-age) was significant. In conclusion, we found that after controlling for age and sex, children belonging to the SC group had lower body fatness. These results implied that they were under more nutritional stress. There was also some evidence that at the early ages, girls belonging to the SC group probably received inadequate nutrition and as a result had lower body fat.