PREVALENCE OF VITAMIN A DEFICIENCY IN FISHERFOLK CHILDREN (6-8 YEARS) OF EAST GODAVARI DISTRICT AND EFFECT OF SUPPLEMENTATION OF ORANGE FLESHED SWEET POTATO
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Authors
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Y. RAJYA LAKSHMI DEVI * and S. THILAKAVATHY
School of Homescience, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore - 641 043
Keywords:
Fisher-folk community, School Children, Vitamin A deficiency, Bitot’s spots, Blood Serum Retinol, Orange fleshed sweet potato, SupplementationAbstract
In today’s world, poverty still exists among people from lower strata and isolated communities. In
India, 60.7% of the fisherfolk community are below the poverty line (BPL) and 97.3% of the fisherfolk
of Andhra Pradesh are under BPL. One thousand artisanal fisherfolk children (6-8 years) from coastal
regions of Kakinada were screened clinically for symptoms of Vitamin A deficiency and other
micronutrient deficiencies. Among them, 23.4% showed moderate to severe clinical symptoms of
Vitamin A deficiency and were selected for the study. The biochemical test results showed that the
mean serum retinol of all the subjects was significantly below the standard values (0.2-0.5 mg/L). In
the study, 100 gm of boiled orange fleshed sweet potato which provides 788μg of Retinol Activity
Equivalents (RAE), thus, meeting 124.7% of the Recommended Dose of Allowance (RDA) was fed to
the children 5 days a week for a period of six months. Orange fleshed sweet potato is a rich source of
beta carotene and fibre. The subjects showed significant improvement in their clinical symptoms and
67% showed rise in their serum retinol levels after supplementation.
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