BACKGROUND: According to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-4, 2015-16) 37.5% children were underweight in India, out of this 29.1% belongs to urban area and 38.3% belongs to rural area and prevalence of stunting, wasting was 38.4%, 21.0% respectively.
OBJECTIVES: The present study aims to find out overall nutritional status of school going children in urban and rural India and synthesize research findings regarding the level of the knowledge of this topic.
MATERIALS & METHODS: Present study reviews total 63 papers indicating nutritional status of urban and rural school going children (5-15 years) in India from the electronic databases like PubMed, NCBI, research gate, academia and Google scholar published during the year 2005 to 2020 and using WHO Z score ,NCHS and some are CDC growth system. For systematic review process PRISMA Flow Diagram has been considered. To analyze the data meta-analysis statistical method was done by using MedCalc software version 19.2.
RESULTS: The overall prevalence of under nutrition, underweight, stunting, wasting and thinness/underweight in urban and rural area of school going children was found to be 33.12% (95% CI: 22.73 to 44.43), 35.90% (95% CI: 27.96 to 44.25), 23.50% (95% CI: 18.35 to 29.0), 17.15% (95% CI: 11.34 to 23.8), 32.36% (95% CI: 27.69 to 37.20) respectively.
CONCLUSION: The present review reveals that nutritional status of school going children in urban and rural areas both was in critical situation. Urgent attention on this aspect is needed.