Abstract
A total of 6531 Punjabi children (3720 males and 2811 females) in the age range of 1 to 5 years were measured in this cross-sectional study during the months of October to December, 2001 inhabiting different parts of Punjab for assessing malnutrition using the criteria of weight-for-age, height-for-age, MUAC-for age (WHO, 1983), weight-for-height (WHO, 1995) and BMI (Rolland-Cachera et al., 1984). The percentage of children who were underweight, stunted, wasted and having low MUAC/age (having Z-scores of –2 SD or more below the reference mean or median value) was 15.04%, 11.42%, 10.76% and 38.52% respectively.