Abstract

Background- Among all nutritional deficiency disorders, iron deficiency anemia is more prevalent among adolescents especially in women population. Objectives – To evaluate the effect of consumption of finger millet [ragi] ladoo on the level of hemoglobin. Material & Method- This quasi-experimental study was conducted in ladies hostel of a selected college in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. The sample consisted of 120 nutritionally anemic young females of age group 17-19 years of age & staying at the hostel. The tool used was a self-structured interview schedule for demographic data and Sahli’s Haemoglobinometer for estimation of hemoglobin level. The total number of study participants was 120. The samples were grouped into experimental groups and control groups with  60 samples in each group. The sampling technique used was the non-probability purposive sampling technique. Before the intervention, all the samples were dewormed. Among all study samples majority (95%) had moderate anemia whereas the remaining (5%) sample had mild anemia. The finger millet [ragi] laddoo two in number (50gm each) were provided daily for four consecutive weeks. The hemoglobin level was reassessed. The mean and standard deviation value in the pre-procedural level of hemoglobin was found to be 8.9 and 0.64 whereas in the post-procedural level of hemoglobin the mean and standard deviation was 9.04 and 0.65 respectively in the experimental group. The calculated ‘t’ test value was 16 and ‘p’ value was 0.0001 (p≤0.05).  Results - The study showed that the consumption of finger millet [ragi] ladoo has a significant effect on the level of hemoglobin among the study sample of the experimental group.