Title
Maternal feeding knowledge and practices as determinants of nutritional status in under-five children
Authors
Jeevitha Solur Venkatesh1, Meenal Kulkarni2 & K Senthil Kumar3,*
Affiliation
1Department of Medicine, Sapthagiri Institute of Medical Science, Karnataka, India; 2Department of Community Medicine, Professor, NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences & RC and Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, Nagpur, India; 3Department of Physiology, Madha Medical College & RI , Tamil Nadu , India; *Corresponding author
Jeevitha Solur Venkatesh - E-mail: jeevithayv4@gmail.com; Phone: +91 8861481443
Meenal Kulkarni - E-mail: meenalkulkarni76@gmail.com
K Senthil Kumar - E-mail: drksk.cool@gmail.com; Phone: +91 9940416604
Article Type
Research Article
Date
Received April 1, 2026; Revised April 30, 2026; Accepted April 30, 2026, Published April 30, 2026
Abstract
Under-five malnutrition remains a persistent public health burden in low- and middle-income countries, contributing substantially to morbidity and impaired growth. Therefore, it is of interest to evaluate maternal knowledge, attitude and feeding practices (KAP) and examined their association with anthropometric indicators among children aged 6 months to 5 years. Maternal KAP was assessed using a structured questionnaire and child nutritional status was determined using weight-for-age, height-for-age and mid-upper arm circumference based on WHO standards. Moderate knowledge (53.3%) and practices (56.7%) were observed, while 23.3% were underweight, 20% stunted and 13.3% wasted. Thus, maternal feeding practices demonstrated significant positive correlations with weight-for-age (r=0.52), height-for-age (r=0.47) and MUAC (r=0.50), indicating behavioral determinants strongly influence child growth outcomes.
Keywords
Maternal education, child malnutrition, knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP), dietary diversity, complementary feeding, anthropometric measurements, child growth, nutrition, maternal knowledge, nutritional practices, under-five children
Citation
Venkatesh et al. Bioinformation 22(4): 2020-2024 (2026)
Edited by
A Prashanth
ISSN
0973-2063
Publisher
License
This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
