Of all nature’s gift to race what is sweeter to man than his children. The healthy population is the wealth of the nation. Children are the most vital human resources for a country possess. Children hold the potential and the limit of future development of any country. Better the nutritional status of the children, higher will be the nation rise. Today’s children are tomorrow citizen who should be healthy. Therefore their nutritional status is of great significant good nutrition is basic component of healthy growth development and for maintaining health throughout life.

Malnutrition is a silent emergency. It is frequently part of a vicious cycle that include poverty and disease. These three factors are inter linked in such a way that each contributes to the presents and permanence of the others. Socio economic and political changes that improve health and nutrition can break the cycle. As can specific nutrition and health intervention. The health and social consequences of the current high prevalence of impaired child growth in developing countries are severe. The major outcome of malnutrition during childhood maybe classified in terms of morbidity, mortality and psychological and intellectual development, these also important consequence in adult life in term of body size work and reproductive performance and risk of chronic disease.

The three main indicators used to define under nutrition i.e. underweight, shunting and wasting represent different histories of nutritional insult to the child. Occurring primarily in the first 2-3 years of life linear growth retardation [stunting] is frequently with repeated exposure to adverse economic poor energy and nutrient intake and infection. Low weight for age indicates a history of poor health or nutritional insult to the child, including recurrent illness and / or starvation while a low weight for height is an indicators of wasting [i,e thinness] and is generally with recent and failure gain weight or loss of weight.

It constitutes a major public health problem in developing world and serves has the most important risk factor for the burden of disease especially among preschool children. Though the united nation has also adopted the millennium development goals seen to have childhood malnutrition indicators by 2015 yet malnutrition still contributes significant morbidity and mortality among preschool children.

In 2014 globally, 50 million children under 5 were wasted and 16 million were severely wasted. This translates into a prevalence of almost 8 percent, respectively. In 2014, almost all wasted children lived in Asia [69 percent] and Africa [29 percent], with similar proportion for severely wasted children. At 14.9 percent, South Asia’s wasting prevalence is close to becoming a ‘critical’ public health problem :that of west and central Africa represents a ‘serious’ need for intervention with appropriate treatment programme. Under 5 wasting and severe wasting are highly sensitive to change. Thus estimates for these indicators are only reported from current levels.

The World Bank estimates that India is one of the highest ranking countries in the world for the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double that of sub Saharan Africa with dire consequences for mobility, productivity and economic growth.

Malnutrition is major contributory factor in majority of their childhood morbidities and mortalities. Thus the investigators were interested to assess the effectiveness of nutritive balls for weight gain and felt the need to provide accurate information about management and prevention of malnutrition among preschool children.

A study to assess the effectiveness of nutritive balls for weight gain among preschool children at Selected School, Perambalur.