Dietary supplementation among irula adolescent girls and its effect on biochemical profile

India is the land to large number of indigenous people. The word tribe denotes a group of people living in primitive conditions. Tribes are one of the most exploited and deprived sections of the population. Irula or Irulas, a schedule tribe, are one of the major tribes of Tamil Nadu. Prevalence of undernutrition in women is high and due to iron deficiency tribal adolescent girls often suffer from anaemia. There is a general agreement that adolescent girls need iron supplementation which will be effective, preventive and curative. It is imperative to safeguard and protect the adolescent girls from malnutrition. Use of novel type of dietary supplements has a better strategy to overcome anaemia. The supplementation of iron rich foods will protect the health of the tribal adolescent girls. Five varied composition of supplementary mixes were formulated standardized and acceptability of the best combination of supplement mix was identified by memory evaluation with the help of 30 taste panelists. A sub sample of 60 anaemic tribal adolescent girls were selected constituting 30 subjects in each experimental and control group for dietary intervention. During mid morning under the supervision of the Headmistress the supplementary mix in powder form weighing 50 grams was distributed to the subjects along with the Amla weighing 25 to 30 grams to enhance the iron assumption. After supplementation there was an improvement in haemoglobin status among selected tribal adolescent girls which is significant at 1% level. It is observed that the significant improvement were noticed in Serum Iron, Total Iron Binding Capacity and Haematological parameters and from the t value it can interviewed that the improvement of Haematological parameter was significant at 1% level.