The present work focuses on studying the effect of socio-economic factors on nutritional status of rural households under the Cooch behar-II block of Cooch behar district in West Bengal. A well-structured interview schedule was prepared to collect information about the socio-economic status and nutritional status of the respondents. As an indicator of Nutritional status, the Body Mass Index (BMI) values of the respondents were studied. In the present study, the Independent-Samples Kruskal-Wallis Test and Independent-Samples Mann-Whitney U Test (non-paramedic test) were employed to study the effect of different socio-economic variables on nutritional status of the respondents. Age of the respondents, educational qualification of the respondents, Family size, and House type of the respondents were found to significantly affect the BMI scores of the respondents. The categories of the significantly contributing variables for nutrition like age, education, and house type show significant associations with the BMI categories using Contingency table and Chi-square test.

Keyword: Nutritional status; Body Mass Index; Non-paramedic test; Contingency table.