http://doi.org/10.33698/NRF0091-Manjula Thakur, Indarjit Walia, Amarjit Singh
Abstract : Adulteration of the essential commodities of daily requirement poses a serious threat to the health of human being. Since a major portion of the family budget goes in meeting the essential nutritional requirement, so people belonging to low socioeconomic group needs to be educated on the selection of right kind of food item with in their low purchasing power to protect against food adulteration. The quassi-experimental study was conducted in DMC. UT. Chandigarh, to find out the impact of health education package related to food adulteration on knowledge and practices of women. Health education package was developed on food adulteration, and was undeliaken by employing lecture and demonstration method. Pre post knowledge of the subjects was ascertained by using pretested interview schedule. It was found during pretest that only half of the subjects were aware of adulteration. Further only two adulterants were known to them among the twelve food items taken as indicator. None of the subject was aware of the physical and chemical test employed to detect adulteration. A significant gain in the knowledge of the subject was observed. So education sessions can help women or community at large to protect themselves against the menace of food adulteration.
Key words :
Women, food adulteration, education.
Correspondence at : Manjula Thakur
National Institute of Nursing Education, PGlMER,Chandigarh
Introduction
Health is wealth; this phrase is very popular because happiness lies in the health of man. Good health helps to develop charm, grace and happy mind. Adequate nutrition is a key to good health but when food gets adulterated; its beneficial effects are lowered, which leads to mortality and high morbidity. So food adulteration is the most dangerous problem related to nutrition.
Food adulteration consists of large number of practices e.g.:-mixing, substitution, concealing the quality, putting of decomposed food for sale, misbranding or giving false labels and addition of toxicants1. Food adulteration can be incidental due to negligence or intentional in which real culprit are the businessman, who try to get profit by making their goods more alluring without caring for consumer’s health2,3. Different adulterants are used for the purpose of adulteration. An adulterant is defined as “any cheap outside item which looks the same as the original food stuff, which mixes very well with it and is not very easy to detect.3 Some of the adulterants used for malpractices are starch, stones, chips, saw dust, urea, caustic soda, kesaridal, mineral oil, argemone oil, asbestos, synthetic colors (metanil yellow, Rhoda mine-B) and mycotoxins and aflatoxins3.
These adulterants are known for causing various health hazards. Stones, marbles chips, sand are the adulterants used in pulses and grains. They have an abrasive effect on the soft lining of digestive tract. Filth and dirty water in any form harbor millions of microorganisms causes stomach upset and infection3. Urea, and caustic soda used for making synthetic milk can corrode intestine, cause diarrhea, mal-absorption and malnutrition. Kesari dal an adulterant used in Channa dal and Arhar dal, besan etc. causes a crippling disease called Lathyrism 4,5,3. Argemone oil another adulterant of mustard oil causes dreaded disease called” Epidemic dropsy”. Mineral oil an adulterant used in edible oil causes interference in absorption of fat soluble Vit.A 1 . Further, synthetic colors e.g. Metanil yellow, and Rhoda mine-b are used as color enhancers for yellow dal, besan and red chilly respectively have teratogenic effect 6.4. Aflatoxins produced by fungal containment of maize, ground nuts, wheat is known to cause hepatitis, ascitis and death. Mycotoxines lead to nausea and vomiting, giddiness, abd. Pain 1.
Food adulteration is an age old problem. Various reports are available of its extent and consequences in history. Seventy percent of the colored food items were found to be adulterated in U.P. in a sample survey in 1994-95.Synthetic colors were the major adulterants found by national institute of nutrition, Hyderabad to profile food adulteration in India7,8. Cases of Epidemic Dropsy were first reported in 1871 as an outbreak in India. Since then number of episodes have been reported in India as well as from other countries like Fizi, South Africa. More recently in 1998, cases were reported from Delhi7 Post pasteurization contamination and under wt. were the malpractices detected from 30 brands of packed milk in Ahmdabad by community Education and research committee9. Other than this every now and then there is news of seizing synthetic milk, synthetic paneer and synthetic khoya in the news paper. Synthetic khoya manufacturing unit was sealed in U.P (2007) and 15000 liters of synthetic milk was seized from a tanker at Rajpura based Dhaba in 2007 10,11,12.
To protect general public against the defective practices adopted by the trader, PFA act 1954 was enacted by Indian parliament and was amended time to time ego 1956, 1976 and lately in 1986 to make the act more stringent. Under this act govt. has set some food standards to check adulteration and defaulters are imposed fine and life imprisonment depending on the nature and extent of adulteration. Standards are also set by Agmark, FPO, ISI to ensure quality, hygiene, preservation, composition etc.
15th March is observed as World Consumer Right Day all over the world ie. Right to choose, Right to information and Right to be heard and fur ther consumer protection act 1986, amended in 2002 provide a very simple and comprehensive mechanism for seeking redress against genuine grievances.13 Although net work of public health laboratories to check adulteration are available, but if consumer’s education is coupled we can reduce the problem to large extent.
In the present study women were chosen, as they are the key person to manage nutritional requirement of the family. They were educated regarding various aspects of food adulteration, simple test to detect adulteration were also demonstrated that will help them to protect from malpractices of adulteration and hence community will be benefited.
Objective
- To assess the knowledge and practices of women regarding food
- To develop and impart health education package on food adulteration to
- To find out the impact of health education package on knowledge and practices of women regarding food
Methodology
It was a quasi experimental study, conducted among the married women age group 15-45 yrs. residing in Dadu Majra Colony (UT) Chd. This colony is situated at a distance of 5 kIn from the college of nursing, PGIMER. On the east of DMC is Sector 38, while on its west is Dhanas Village, to the north of it is shooting range and on south lies Maloya village. This is an urban resettled colony with house number 1 to 3003. Colony has modern system of sanitation, underground drainage and tap water supply. There is a Govt. dispensary and Sr. Sec. School. Residents are migrants from different parts of India so have different social and cultural practices. Hundred subjects were selected by systematic random sampling during January-February 1999. Interview schedule and health education package were the tools developed and employed in the present study.
Semi structured interview schedule was developed, it included two parts. Part-A included socio-demographic data and part-B included information on knowledge & practices of the study subjects related to food adulteration. Health education package was the tool used for intervention. It also included two parts. The first part was related to the meaning of adulteration, different adulterants used for adulteration, associated health hazards, precaution one has to take at the time of buying to protect oneself against food adulteration. Where as in the second part simple household methods to detect adulteration in commonly used food items were demonstrated. Tools were validated by consulting exper ts from nursing and community medicine department, and further by pilot study. Reliability was ascertained by test retest method. Ten women from the study sample were interviewed and after a gap of one week again interviewed. Responses were checked for co-relation by using coefficient correlation method and were found to be 0.983, which was highly significant.
Pretest was conducted in the form of interview in the household set up. Date, time and venue for the health education session were fixed along with the pretest. After interviewing 10 subjects that comprised one group, intervention in the form of health education session was done separately for each group in Adult education centre/ dispensary/house on the same day after the pretest. Lecture and demonstration were the two methods of teaching employed to impart health education package. One week after the intervention posttest was conducted in the household set up for each subject by employing part-B of the interview schedule. The difference in the pretest and posttest responses of the subjects were measured and analyzed by using Mc.Nemar,s test.
Results
Seventy percent of study subjects were in the age range of 20-35 yrs, where as mean age was 29.5 yrs with S.D ± 6.4 yrs. Half of the subjects belonged to schedule casts and majority were Hindus by religion. Seventy one percent of the subjects were literate although majority (80%) were housewives by occupation. Per capita income of the subjects ranged from Rs. 201-1875 and 71% of the subjects had per capita income in the range of Rs.500 to Rs.1,599. Seventy five percent of the study subjects were from middle class according to Kuppuswamy Scale.14
Study revealed that general market was the main source used by the study subjects to purchase twelve food items taken as indicator, except 14% they purchased from Superbazaar.
Table – 1: Practices followed by the subjects while purchasing various food items
N=100
| Foods Items | Fetch from Dairy/Home Production | Packed/Sealed Food Items | Loose Food Items | Not Using |
| 1. Milk | 17 | 45 | 38 | – |
| 2. Desi Ghee | 24 | 43 | 20 | 15 |
| 3. Besan | 04 | 05 | 83 | 08 |
| 4. Wheat / Atta | 18 | 36 | 46 | – |
| 5. Haldi | 05 | 69 | 26 | – |
| 6. Red Chilli | 06 | 52 | 37 | 05 |
| 7. Tea Leaves | – | 76 | 24 | – |
| 8. Black Pepper | – | 08 | 61 | 31 |
| 9. Mustard Oil | 02 | 52 | 18 | 28 |
| 10. Pulses | – | 20 | 80 | – |
| 11. Common Salt | – | 94 | 04 | – |
| 12. Ajwain | – | 29 | 50 | 21 |
Besan, Black pepper, Pulses and Ajwain were bought as loose food items by 50-83% of the subjects, where as Milk, Atta and Red chilly were bought by more than 37-46 % of the subjects as loose food items. Tea leaves (76%) and common salt (94%) were the two commodities bought as sealed food items by majority of the subjects as shown -Table-I. Fifty two percent of the subjects were aware of the adulteration and even 15% of them reported to have experienced it. As shown in Table -2 majority(80%) of the subjects were aware of water and one third were aware of the starch as the adulterant of milk. Another 57% of the subjects were able to name stone and twigs as common adulterant of pulses, where as one third of them even repor ted Makki ka Atta as adulterant in Basin during pretest But, after the intervention knowledge of the subjects increased significantly, except gain in knowledge for asbestos powder as adulterant.
Table – 2 : Comparison of Pre and Post test knowledge of the subjects regarding adulterants
N = 100
|
Food Items Common Adulterants Able to name Mc.Nemar’s
Present study also revealed that none of the subject was aware of the physical and chemical test employed to detect to adulterant But after the intervention significant gain in the knowledge of the subject was observed, except for two adulterant (color and kesari dal) partial gain in knowledge was observed.
During pretest more than half (55%) of the subjects reported that adulterated food items when consumed is hazardous to health. Weakness, Nausea, Vomiting and Diarrhea were the health hazards reported by 17%, 21%, 23 % of the subjects respectively in the pretest. But significant gain in the knowledge of the subjects was observed during posttest as shown in Table – 4.
Table- 4: Pre and post test knowledge of the subjects regarding health hazards due to food adulteration N = 100
| Health Hazards |
Pre Test |
Response |
Post Test |
x2 Value |
| 1. Nausea & Vomiting | 21 | 60 | 31.0*** | |
| 2. Diarrhea | 23 | 75 | 48.4*** | |
| 3. Weakness | 17 | 38 | 24.5*** | |
| 4. Fever | 03 | 23 | 16.6*** | |
| 5. BIL Swelling feet | 04 | 47 | 37.3*** | |
| 6. Eye Sight | 01 | 15 | 14.0*** | |
| 7. Cancer | 01 | 17 | 14.2*** | |
| 8. Lung and Kidney Damage | Nil | 43 | 43.0*** | |
| 9. Death | 01 | 25 | 18.6*** | |
| 10. Goiter | Nil | 17 | 17.0*** | |
| 11. Paralysis | Nil | 40 | 40.0*** |
*** P< .001Only 23% of the subjects were aware of the various standard marks like IS I, FPO, Agmark. During pretest 3,8,18 subjects were able to identify FPO, Agmark and ISI respectively, where as significant gain in knowledge of the subjects was observed during posttest Sixty eight responses of the subjects reported that they can not protect themselves against food adulteration during pretest but during posttest, except one all favored that they can now protect themselves against food adulteration.
Discussion
Food is essential for human existence but it has been liable to adulteration since ancient times. The extent and consequences of the food adulteration have been admitted and illustrated by number of official and non official studies. A survey of the Union health Ministry admits that every third eatable in the market is either substandard or adulterated15. Although govt. has been enacting and implementing various acts to combat the menace of food adulteration, it is the prime duty of the health personnel to educate consumer about various aspects of food adulteration. Women were chosen for the study because they are the key person to manage the nutritional requirement of the family.
In this industrialized age, where common man has so many choices, it really difficult for him or her to decide or choose the right kind of eatables. One can purchase food items either from a general shops or shops exclusive for that par ticular commodity, street vendor, small khokhas, super bazaar or from co-op stores, some people even prefer to prepare commodities like Desi Ghee, Haldi powder, Red chilly powder, Besan, Atta etc. themselves and is safer for health or one should buy from co- op store/super bazaar/from reputed shops to protect oneself against food adulteration4.
Nowadays there are standard shops like Subhiksha, Reliance stores,9 to 10 or 6 to 10 shops, which claim to provide standard items, previously there were Super Bazar, study revealed that people were not aware of the quality product sold at standard shops. It was found that most of the subjects purchased food items from the General market, where as street vendors/open market was the second source used by the study subjects to purchase eight food items out of the twelve food items taken as indicator. Only few (5%) used their own source/own crops. Further, to protect against the food adulteration, it is recommended that one must buy sealed, fairly labeled food items4. Majority of the subjects bought Tea leaves and Common salt as sealed packets. Half of the subjects also bought Red chillies as sealed commodity. On the hand subjects bought Pulses, Bessan, Black pepper, Atta, Milk, Haldi, Desi ghee, Ajwain as loose packets.
It was also found that half of the subjects were aware of the adulteration in the twelve food items taken as indicator, even 15% had experienced it also, on contrary another half were totally ignorant of the malpractices adopted by the traders, in spite of the reporting on Epidemic Dropsy in 1998, which also claimed few lifes16. The finding revealed that after the intervention significant gain in the knowledge of the subjects regarding different adulterants, related health hazards, detection by physical and chemical method were observed
Significant gain in the attitude of the subjects was also observed in case adulteration is ever experienced.
Standard are something those are set up and established by the authorities for measuring quality, weight, extent of value or quality which enables the person to buy a quality food products17, like ISI, FPO, Agmark, PFA act 1954, CPA 1986 amended-2002, provide legal relationship between consumer and sellar /manufacturer of the Good. Different program like “Jaggo Grahak Jago” are telecast on TV to make public aware as how to protect oneself against food adulteration. Apart from this in the present study significant gain in the knowledge of the subjects was also observed after the intervention that by using sealed, properly labeled, bearing standard mark, avoiding colored food items and ensuring quality then and there at the time of buying or testing at home in case of doubt are some of the points can help one self against food adulteration.
Majority of the subjects expressed positive attitude towards the health education package. Few of them even suggested that more items should be taken and method of reporting should also be included in study. Since one health education session brought significant gain in the knowledge of the subjects regarding food adulteration, so Health Education Package was proved to be an effective media. Further, this package can also be used in future for impar ting community education regarding food adulteration.
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