Nutritional Problems of Anaemia Disorders Among the Tea Plantation Labourers in Nilgiris District - A Geo Medical Study

Abstract

Health and nutritional practices are developed by people’s tendency to settle into fixed habits. The practices of any community are influenced by socio-economic and political factors. These factors have also had considerable influence not only on the development of medical technology. This nutrition is one of the most important factors responsible for proper growth in infancy and childhood, (Sunita Mishra & Braja Kishori Mishra, 2002). Good nutrition is a fundamental requirement for positive health, functional efficiency and productivity. Good nutrition is determined by the consumption of an adequate diet, as also person's ability to resist disease and infections that interfuse with the digestive and absorption processes of the biological system where on the one hand good nutrition enables us to lead a socially and economically active life. Nutritional anaemia is a disease syndrome caused by malnutrition in its widest sense. It has been defined by WHO as “a condition in which the hemoglobin content of blood is lower than normal as a result of a deficiency of one or more essential nutrients, regardless of the cause of such deficiency”. The present administrative district, the Nilgiris, is a plateau of lofty mountains, roughly 55 kms long, 32 kms in width (exactly 2549.38 sq. kms) and 6,500 ft above the sea level. On the globe, the hills lie between 1lO 8'and 11O 37' North latitudes, and 76O 27' and 77O 4' East longitudes. The district has a geographical area of 2,543 sq. kms, constituting above 1.95 per cent of the area of the State of Tamil Nadu. The Nilgiris district is a hilly region in the Western Ghats, depend on climate conditions, most suitable for tea cultivation in the district. The tea plantation workers affected nutritional defect on anaemia disease.