Background: Nutritional status plays a vital role in deciding the health status of an individual. Tribal groups are among the most underprivileged people which comprise about 8.60% of the total population of India. The Thengal Kachari and Dibongiya Deori are the indigenous tribe of Assam and are a patrilineal segment.

Aims and Objectives: This study is an attempt to examine the nutritional status of Thengal Kachari and Dibongiya Deori adult males in terms of selected anthropometric measurements. An estimation of the prevalence of underweight and overweight is presented in making a comparative study between the two populations and to analyse the effect of bio-social factors such as age, marital status, education income, family size and occupation.

Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among 260 adult males (115 Thengal Kachari males and 145 Dibongiya Deori males) with ages ranging from 18 to 74 years of two separate villages viz., Mornoi Thengal Gaon and Bordeori Gaon respectively under Lakhimpur district of Assam. Body Mass Index (BMI) is used to classify nutritional status of the adult population.

Results: The prevalence of under-nutrition is quite high among the Thengal Kachari (13.04%) compared with the Dibongiya Deori (8.97%). However, the proportion of overweight, by and large, seems to be similar in both the Thengal Kachari (30.44%) and Dibongiya Deori (31.72%) population. There are statistically significant differences between Thengal Kachari and Dibongiya Deori in the prevalence of underweight with regards to conicity index (χ2 =4.45, df=1, p<0.05) and waist to hip ratio (χ2 =6.36, df=1, p<0.05). However, with regards to the prevalence of overweight, the chi-square shows non-significant differences between Thengal Kachari and Dibongiya Deori adult males except with conicity index (χ2 =4.47, df=1, p<0.05).

Conclusions: The findings showcase that under-nutrition is more prevalent among the Thengal Kachari although their economic condition is much more favourable than the Dibongiya Deori. The effect of socio-economic factors like marital status was clearly perceptible especially in terms of underweight in the study population.