Study of the Nutritional Status of High School Students from Medinipur Sadar Subdivision, Paschim Medinipur District, West Bengal, India

Abstract

Prevalence of malnutrition among adolescent children is very high in India especially in rural areas one of the major problems facing the developing countries. To relate the daily nutritional intake and the prevalence of health status of high school going children aged between12 to 15 years in the Medinipur Sadar subdivision, Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal present cross sectional study was performed. Present study also engaged to estimate the prevalence of socioeconomic factors associated with their malnutrition, if any. A total of 154 high schools were included in the study. Out of the total 12,342 student population, 8320 students (4756 boys and 3564 girls) were selected depending on their attendance on the day of assessment using convenience and simple random sampling methods. To assess the nutritional status relative to age, body mass index (BMI) of the target subjects was determined using anthropometric measurements and compared with WHO reference (2007). The study revealed that overall prevalence of malnutrition in the selected subdivision was high with 24.00% and 25.01% of the children being obese and overweight, 7.80% and 8.09% been lean or severely lean while 35.10% were normal. The incidence of malnutrition was prevalent among boys than girls. Majority (73.89%) of their parents had some formal education while 26.11% was illiterate. Their economical background was not well established. The high incidence of malnutrition may be attributed to their improper dietary habits, unawareness of balanced diet, poor prenatal nutrition along with low family income and poor educational background of their parents.