PROJECT REPORT

On
Dietary Requirement for Children between 4-6 years

SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. Vinay Yadav

SUBMITTED BY:

Ayushi Singhal MBA20067

Badal Kumar Pathak MBA20068
Bhaswati Chiring MBA20069
Bhawana Mutneja MBA20070
Bishal Kumar Patro MBA20071
Burada Balaram Hemanth MBA20072
Debopriyo Roy MBA20074
Deepshikha Dabas MBA20075
Ganesh P Nikam MBA20076

Indian Institute of Management Jammu

Jammu - 180016

January 2021
DECLARATION OF ACADEMIC HONESTY & INTEGRITY

“We declare that this written submission represents our ideas in our own words and where
others' ideas or words have been included, we have adequately cited and referenced the
original sources. We also declare that we have adhered to all principles of academic honesty
and integrity and have not misrepresented or fabricated or falsified any idea/data/fact/source
in our submission. We understand that any violation of the above will be cause for
disciplinary action by the Institute and can also evoke penal action from the sources which
have thus not been properly cited or from whom proper permission has not been taken when
needed.”

Name of the Students Signature Date

 
Ayushi Singhal 02-01-2021

 
Badal Kumar Pathak 02-01-2021

 
Bhaswati Chiring 02-01-2021

 
Bhawana Mutneja 02-01-2021

 
Bishal Kumar Patro 02-01-2021

 
Burada Balaram Hemanth 02-01-2021

 
Debopriyo Roy 02-01-2021

 
Deepshikha Dabas 02-01-2021

 
Ganesh P Nikam 02-01-2021

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INTRODUCTION
According to the Global Nutrition Report, 2020, India is likely to miss its target of reducing
stunting among children under five by 40% by 2025, as recommended by the World Health
Assembly. 37.9% of children under the age of 5 are stunted, with an additional 20.8% wasted.
More than 50% are underweight. These statistics highlight the prevalence of malnourishment
in the country, which has also been identified as the one with the highest domestic
inequalities rate in terms of malnutrition.

Problem Statement 
This study aims to minimize the cost of the acquisition of nutritional value items for children.
The nutritional value in food items must be sufficient to curb malnutrition and provide an
overall balanced diet to the children.
Objective
The followings are the objectives of this study report:
 To identify the correct nutrition value level required for the age group of 4-6 years.
 To minimize the total cost or expenditure and to deliver high nutritional value food
items.
 To keep track of value intake such that every nutrient is provided to children of the
same age group.
 To maintain a health report based on the nutritional chart supplement of children.
For the purpose of this study, the daily nutritional requirements for children, along with a
balanced mix of Indian food items, taking reference from food guidelines, their prices, and
nutritional values, have been considered to arrive at an optimal diet that also minimizes costs.
To facilitate this, a hypothetical NGO involved in feeding the children has been considered,
and a meal plan best suited to the needs of those between 4-6 years of age is generated. The
Simplex method, a linear programming technique, facilitated by LINGO, has been
implemented to reach the solution. The methodology has been discussed in detail later.
Motivation
The motivation behind selecting a cost-optimized diet decision is the high rate of malnutrition
in children in India. Also, the rate of poverty does impact as the families under the poverty
line cannot provide balanced nutritional meals to their children. Thus, having proper nutrition
knowledge with minimum cost would not only help the children to be healthy but at the same
time would be affordable to such families. As we all know that being nourished and healthy
is highly needed in the current scenario to build immunity and battle with the pandemic. This
report would hold potential merits to a better understanding and scope of balanced use of
nutrition in children's day-to-day lives. Besides societal uses, parents can use it to cater to
better and healthy lifestyles for their children.

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DATA AND METHODOLOGY
Assumptions
The following assumptions are made for our mathematical model:
1. A hypothetical NGO which is involved in feeding children.
2. We have taken the age group of 4-6 years as children below this age group do not
consume many varieties of food and are dependent on only 2-3 food items.
Linear Programming Problem
Linear Programming (LP) is a technique used to optimize a value of a function subjected to
few constraints. Therefore, the main purpose of this method involves either maximizing or
minimizing a value in accordance with the constraints which can be both in the form of linear
equations as well as inequalities. Few characteristics of this method includes that Constraints
should be stated in mathematical terms, Objective function must be quantifiable, Relationship
among the variables should be proportional or linear and Variable value must be non-
negative
Simplex Method
Simplex Method is one of the ways to solve linear programming problems by introducing
slack variables and using tableaus, pivot rows, and pivot columns. This method consists of
performing iterations until you reach an optimal solution. This method is used to solve
complex problems with many variables by considering Corner Point Feasible (CPF) solutions
which are not considered in the graphical method of solving linear programming problems.
The simplex method is being used in this project as it would consider a few feasible solutions
based on the corner points in order to decide the best food mix of nutritional value items that
could be transported with the minimum cost.
LINGO
LINGO is a program that can formulate linear, non-linear, quadratic, and integers problems,
and can solve the problem of optimization in no time. This tool can be used for solving
transportation and assignment problems with the help of its built-in solvers. LINGO doesn’t
require you to select and load the solver for different problems, rather it automatically picks
up the type of solver to solve various problems. We used LINGO software for this project to
reach the optimum solution to achieve the minimum transportation cost for delivering
nutritional food. The program is convenient to use and allows the user to develop
optimization models very easily using the summation signs and variables and can process the
solution and produce the output into the spreadsheet to generate reports for future use.
Data Collection
We have done the secondary research for the nutritional requirement for the kids of the age
group of 4-6 years. Based on the nutritional requirements provided by the World Health
Organization and other government websites i.e., nutrition.gov and National Institute of
Nutrition, India, we formulated the food mix which would be able to comply with the

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 nutritional requirements of the kids. The cost of the food is based on the prices at which the
material would be available to the NGO from the local vendors.
Nutritional Content for Individual Food Item
Food Items
Toor
Nutrients Dal
Soya Milk(100ml Carrot Spinach (100
Wheat(100g) Beans(100g) ) Egg (100 g) (100 g) Banana g)
Fat(g) 2.5 20 1 5 0.2 0.4 0.3 3
Energy
(Kcal) 346 432 67 86 48 26 116 335
Calcium(mg
) 41 240 210 30 80 73 17 73
Iron(mg) 5.3 10.4 0.2 1 1 1.1 0.4 2.7
Protein(g) 11.8 43.2 4.3 6.7 1 2 1.2 22.3
Vitamin 17.
A(µg) 5.33 0 4 5 657.5 465 6.5 11
Vitamin
C(mg) 0 6 1 0 6 28 7 0
Fibre(g) 1.2 3.7 0 0 1.2 2.2 0.4 1.5

Objective Function
To minimize the total diet cost and is defined by the food and unit cost respectively. The cost
function (Z) is linear function of product of quantity of wheat (X 1), quantity of soya bean
(X2), quantity of milk (X3), quantity of eggs (X4), quantity of carrot (X5), quantity of spinach
(X6), quantity of banana (X7), quantity of toor dal (X8) and their individual minimized costs.
The individual minimized cost of each of the food items has been collected by a survey with
few local vendors for particular NGOs working in the field of child nutrition.

List of Food Prices in Nov-Dec 2020

Minimize
Food Item d Price
Wheat 2.2/100g
Soya beans 3.8/100g
Eggs 4/egg
Milk 4/100ml
Toor Dal 7/100g
Carrot 1/100g
Spinach 2/100g
Banana 1/piece

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According to the dietary guidelines in our country, a child between 4-6 yrs. of age should be
provided with the recommended amount of following nutrients:

Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) per day for Children

Nutrients
of 4-6 years old

Fat(g) 34
Energy (Kcal) 1350
Calcium(mg) 550
Iron(mg) 11
Protein(g) 13
Vitamin A(µg) 510
Vitamin C(mg) 35
Fibre(g) 15

Minimized cost function formulation

Min Z = 2.2*X1 + 3.8*X2 + 4*X3 + 4*X4 + 1*X5 + 1*X6 + 2*X7 + 7*X8

2.5*X1 + 20*X2 + 1*X3 + 5*X4 + 0.2*X5 + 0.4*X6 + 0.3*X7 + 3*X8 >= 34;
346*X1 + 432*X2 + 67*X3 + 86*X4 + 48*X5 + 26*X6 + 116*X7 + 335*X8 >= 1350;
41*X1 + 240*X2 + 210*X3 + 30*X4 + 80*X5 + 73*X6 + 17*X7 + 73*X8 >=450;
5.3*X1 + 10.4*X2 + 0.2*X3 + 1*X4 + 1*X5 + 1.1*X6 + 0.4*X7 + 2.7*X8 >=8;
11.8*X1 + 43.2*X2 + 4.3*X3 + 6.7*X4 + 1*X5 + 2*X6 + 1.2*X7 + 13*X8 >=13;
5.33*X1 + 4*X3 + 17.5*X4 + 657.5*X5 + 465*X6 + 6.5*X7 + 11*X8 >=240;
6*X2 + 1*X3 + 6*X5 + 28*X6 + 7*X7 >=27;
1.2*X1 + 3.7*X2 + 1.2*X5 + 2.2*X6 + 0.4*X7 + 1.5*X8 >=15;
X1>=1; X2>=0; X3>=0; X4>=0; X5>=0; X5>=0; X6>=0; X7>=0; X8>=0;

Result
With the use of LINGO, the values of X1, X2 and X6 are 1.903916, 1.393282 and 3.436436,
respectively. The optimal cost of these combination of food items will be Rs 12.92. The
balanced diet which will provide the recommended dietary requirement in the least possible
cost comprises of Wheat, Soya Bean and Spinach. There can be more than one optimal cost
as the combination of the food items for each meal will be different throughout the week.

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Limitations
Even though the Diet Problem has had a long history over times, majority of the solutions to
the Diet Problem were devised in the 21st century. One of the major challenges that lie ahead
to further improve the results using linear programming or simplex method in our case is to
build bigger databases with more detailed information of food and the environment. Another
issue that lies ahead while trying to solve our diet problem is the need for acceptability
criteria, but it increases the entire cost by almost three times. LP has proved to be an essential
tool to convert constraints related to cost and nutrition with the help of unpredictable
combinations of food, but this method shows weakness when there are a low number of food
items present. The environmental effect of food must also be considered, and such ecological
constraints must also be introduced.

Scope for Future

In this current situation, malnutrition has been a major problem for children below 6 years
old. Our project can be helpful in the development of a proper dietary guideline that
maintains all nutrient requirements. The methodology used above can also be effective in cost
optimization. This project’s outcome can be applied to find the optimal diet for any age group
and for different location foods. Linear programming can be used in maintaining a healthy
diet and controlling the expenditure on food. In further, this method is beneficial in finding
various solution to the diet problem.

Conclusion
For the current and future wellbeing of children and their growth, healthy nutrition is
fundamental. From an early age onwards, adopting healthy dietary and lifestyle habits will
have a significant effect on the diets and health of people in their adult lives and increase the
productivity of individuals and nations. Linear programming methods can be helpful in
making a diet plan for the children which is an important element of an overall strategy to
enhance food security and eliminate all types of malnutrition.

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 Bibliography
1. Food and Agriculture Organization. (1991). Energy and protein requirements, Infants,
children, and adolescents.
2. National Institute of Nutrition, (2020), Nutrient Requirements for Indians. 
3. National Institute of Nutrition, ICMR. (2011). Dietary Guidelines For Indians, A
Manual. 
4. World Health Organization. (2020). Global Nutrition Report.
5. Food Safety and Standards Association of India. (2020). Recommended Dietary
Allowance (RDA)- reg. 
6. Nutripedia. (2018). Indian Kids are Different, their Nutritional Needs are Different,
Retrieved from: http://www.signutra.com/nutripedia/indian-kids-are-different-their-
nutritional-needs-are-different/

Contribution Table
Particulars Ayushi Badal Bhaswati Bhawana Bishal Balaram Debopriyo Deepshikh Ganesh
Singhal Pathak Chiring Mutneja Patro Hemanth Roy a Dabas P Nikam
20067 20068 20069 20070 20071 20072 20074 20075 20076

Introduction - - - - - - - ✓ ✓

Problem - - - - - - - ✓ ✓
Statement
Data ✓ - - ✓ - - - - -
Collection
Data Analysis - ✓ ✓ - - ✓ - - -

Methodology ✓ - - ✓ - - - - -

Results - ✓ ✓ - - ✓ - - -

Future Scope - - - - ✓ - ✓ - -
& limitations
Conclusion - - - - ✓ - ✓ - -

Percentage 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11% 11.11%
Contribution

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