Gender inequality in school going children – A concern for the modern society

Background: Gender inequality is especially tragic not only because it excludes women from basicsocial opportunities but also because it gravely imperils the life prospects of future generations.Objectives: (a) To assess the malnutrition status in primary school children of government andprivate school, (b) To compare the nutritional status between girls and boys and, (c) To analyze anygender inequality in the nutritional status of the school going children in different socio –economicstrata of the society. Methods: The anthropometry is the most precious tool for doing nutritionalassessment. The present anthropometric study was done to assess the nutritional status of children,in both government and private primary school. Results: In government schools, overall 17.3% offemales were underweight as compared to 9.3% of males. In private schools, overall 15.2% of femaleswere underweight compared to 11.1% of males. Conclusions: The present study has successfullydocumented the nutritional status in terms of prevalence of underweight and overweight amonggovernment and private primary school going children of Meerut, U.P. with under nutrition more infemales than the male counterparts.