Background:

Tribal communities exhibit specific signatures such as primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, and economic and social backwardness. Along with these, some tribal groups show distinct dependencies on hunting, gathering for food, having pre-agriculture level of technology, zero or negative growth of population and extremely low level of literacy. According to National Family Health Survey (2015-2016) in India the prevalence of wasted, stunted and underweight children (0-59 months) are 21%, 38% and 36% respectively and in West Bengal the prevalence of wasted, stunted and underweight children are 19.1%, 45.7% and 39.5%. In West Bengal 25.9% males and 21.3% females aged 15-49 years come under overall thinness (BMI <18.5) and 12.5% males and 19.9% females are overweight/obese (BMI >25) (NFHS-4, 2017). To address the under-nutrition, children from lower economic section are encouraged to attend school regularly and to develop the nutritional status the government has initiated and continued cooked Mid Day Meal Programme (MDMP) for more than two decades in primary and upper primary students. But the problem of under-nutrition has remained a sustained problem among the children both in the rural and urban India. Another most visible form attached with malnutrition is anemia which is caused by iron deficiency. The prevalence of anemia for below 5 years of children is 58.5% at national level and in West Bengal it is 54.2%. If we consider the scenario of Kolkata metropolitan city, the situation is alarming followed by the presence of 70% preschool anemic children, 46.4% women and 24.6% men of 15-49 years (NFHS-4, 2017). Till date no study has focussed on the gut microbiome of West Bengal tribal population despite the fact that there are 40 identified tribes in the state comprising of 5.8 per cent of the total population of the state as per 2011 Census.

This project aims to identify the GBP of representative members of three tribes of West Bengal (Savar, Mech and Bhutia) to generate an insight into their food habits and screen gut microbes which can be associated with undernourishment.

Research Team

Prof. Subrata Sankar Bagchi

Souradip Basu (JRF)

Kaustav Das

[Department of Anthropology; University of Calcutta]

Priyabrata Singha (Dissertation Trainee, SXC)

Nabhonil Chatterjee, Tannistha Das and Abhinanda Adak (Interns)

Project Duration: Upto 2023

Funding: WBDST; Government of West Bengal