KARACHI, Sept 7: Only 38 per cent of the preschool children belonging to low income households of Karachi can afford eating at least one food from each of the basic four food groups in the whole day.

A study conducted by students of Rana Liaquat Ali Khan Government College of Home Economics to assess the extent of variability in and relationship between the frequency of food consumption nutritional status of preschool children belonging to low-income groups registered intake of foods from cereals and milk group on part of these kids to be higher than meat, egg, fruit and vegetable groups.

During the exercise a total of 360 randomly-selected families from the lower-middle income group having a preschool child were studied. The recruited mothers were interviewed about the frequency of food consumption of the child. Anthropometric measurements of the preschool child were also taken and after ranking and grouping children on the basis of nutritional status differences in frequency of food consumption of well and relatively poorly nourished children were studied.—APP