Introduction: Maternal and child mortality have declined
significantly in Nepal to the extent that Nepal is on track to
meet the Millennium Development Goals for maternal and
child mortality. Similar improvements have not been seen in
general nutrition status of them. Objective of this study was to
evaluate a nutrition-education intervention designed to improve
nutritional status (reduce stunting, wasting and underweight) of
children. Materials and Methods: It was an intervention with
separate sample pretest posttest design. Two groups of Village
Development Committee (VDC) from Mahottari district were
recruited as interventional and control areas. The intervention
was a 12-months nutrition education program and comprised
of twelve times with 2-3 hour nutrition lectures and discussion
classless conducted by the Female Community Health Volunteers
(FCHVs). Results: The Present study found that number of
underweight children increased by 7.6% in control group while
it decreased by 17.7% in intervention group from baseline to
endline in both groups. So, intervention programme was able
to decrease the number of underweight children significantly.
Study shows that wasting status of children increased by 11.4%
in control group from baseline to endline period. While in
intervention group wasting status of children decreased by more
than 5% from baseline to endline period. Conclusion: Nutrition
education intervention was effective to reduce wasting and
underweight but did not reduce the stunting status of children.
Stunting reflects failure to receive adequate nutrition over a
long period of time and is affected by recurrent and chronic
illness. Findings suggested that nutrition programme of longer
duration should be implemented to control the stunting status
of children.