Nutritional beliefs amongst Anganwadi workers

Knowledge about nutritive value of common foods, dietary beliefs during antenatal period, lactation, and during a few common diseases was assessed amongst 92 Anganwadi workers (AWW). All the workers were aware of the fact that during pregnancy, mothers require extra calories in order to meet the demand of fetus and 79.3% believed that simple multimix of cereals, pulses and oil prepared at home is much more nutritive than commercial weaning foods besides being cheaper. Nearly one fourth of the workers believed that both non-vegetarian foods as well as pulses should be avoided during the later half of pregnancy. Only 14.2% of AWW were not in favour of giving any food during episode of diarrhea while 27.2% believed that less food should be given to children suffering from pneumonia. It is suggested that there is need for updating the knowledge of AWW by continued in service health training.