Assessment of Nutritional Status of Adolescents: Field Experience from Rural Gujarat, India

Authors

  • Poonam K Trivedi Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, India
  • Deepak Saxena Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, India
  • Tapasvi Puwar Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, India
  • Sandul Yasobant Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, India
  • Shital Savaliya Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, India
  • Manish Fancy Sabarkantha, Government Of Gujarat, Himmatnagar

Keywords:

AHD, Adolescent, BMI

Abstract

Background: Worldwide there are more than 1.2 billion adolescent; more than half of all adolescents live in Asia and India has the highest adolescent population than any other country. Adolescents face a range of health challenges; contributing to increased morbidity and mortality. However, the comprehensive data on status of morbidity are scarce. Present study assesses nutritional status of adolescents attended Adolescent Health Day (AHD) in one of the taluka of Gujarat.

Methods: Present study documented nutritional status of adolescents attended 16 AHD organized by health department in Talod block of Sabarkantha district. Screening of adolescents was done for Body Mass Index (BMI) and Hemoglobin estimation.

Results: Out of total 821 adolescents, 690 (84%) school-going and 131 (16%) non-school-going adolescents screened, 17% were severely thin and only about half had normal BMI. Less than a percent were overweight. Prevalence of anemia was 6% in girls and 3% in boys.

Conclusions: Present study documents poor nutritional status of adolescents in rural Gujarat; narrates an urgent need for better nutrition to combat the problem of undernutrition amongst adolescents. Present study also reinforces a need for further research and documentation of nutritional status of Adolescents to enhance current interventions in the field of adolescent health.

References

National Rural Health Mission. Background note on Ado-lescent Health.Available at: http://www.nrhm.gov.in/ nrhm-components/rmnch-a/adolescent-health/2014-02-25-09-42-57/background-rksk.html. Accessed May 15th, 2015.

Maiti S, Chatterjee K, Ali KM, et al. Assessment of nutri-tional status of rural early adolescent school girls in Dan-tan-II Block, Paschim Medinipur District, West Bengal. Ntl J community Med. 2011; 2 (1). 14-8.

NFHS. Key findings report, National Family Health Sur-vey (NFHS 3).2005. Ministry of Health and Family wel-fare, Government of India. Available at: http://rchiips.org/nfhs /nfhs3_national_report.shtml , Accessed Feb 12th, 2016.

World Health Organization. Physical status: The use and interpretation of anthropometry. Technical report series, Geneva; World Health Organization; 1995. Report No.: 854.

Press Information Bureau, Government of India. Press Information Bureau, Government of India Web site. [Online]. New Delhi; Available at: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease .aspx?relid=102328. Accessed January 22nd, 2014.

Johnson LR. Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram (RKSK). Academic Medical Journal of India. 2014 Feb 27; 2(1):42.

Rastriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram: Operational Framework- Translating Strategy into Programs. National Health Mission.]. Available at: http://www.expandnet.net/PDFs/ In-dia_RKSK_Strategy%20Operational_Framework_2014.pdf Accessed Feb 21st 2016.

Pal GK, Pal P. Estimation of Hemoglobin Concentration. In: Text book of practical physiology, 2nd edn. Orient Longman Private limited, 160 Anna Salai, Chennai 600 002. 2006. pp. 10-20.

Ministry of family welfare, GoI. Guidelines for control of Iron deficiency anaemia, Adolescent division, 2013. Available from: http://www.pbnrhm.org/docs/iron_plus_ guide-lines.pdf. Accessed January 25th ,2016

Deshmukh P R, Gupta SS, Bharambe MS, et al. Nutri-tional Status of Adolescents in Rural Wardha. Indian Journal of Pediatrics. 2006 Feb; 73.

Choudhary S, Mishra CP, Shukla KP. Nutritional status of adolescent girls in rural area of Varanashi. Indian Journal of Preventive Social Medicine. 2003; 34 (1): 53-61.

Toteja GS, Singh P, Dhillion BS, Saxena BN, Ahmed FU, Singh RP: Prevalence of anemia among pregnant women and adolescent girls in 16 districts of India. Food Nutri-tion Bull. 2006; 27: 311-5.

Gupta AK, Ahmad AJ et al. Childhood obesity and hy-pertension. Indian Journal of Pediatrics. 1990; 27:333-337.

Mohan B, Kumar N, Aslam N, Rangulla A, Kumbkarni S, et al. Prevalence of sustained hypertension and obesity in urban and rural school going children in Ludhiyana. Indi-an Heart Journal. 2004; 56:310-314.

Downloads

Published

2016-12-31

How to Cite

1.
Trivedi PK, Saxena D, Puwar T, Yasobant S, Savaliya S, Fancy M. Assessment of Nutritional Status of Adolescents: Field Experience from Rural Gujarat, India. Natl J Community Med [Internet]. 2016 Dec. 31 [cited 2024 Dec. 22];7(12):926-30. Available from: https://njcmindia.com/index.php/file/article/view/1099

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 12 (2016)

Section

Original Research Articles

License

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The authors retain the copyright of their article, with first publication rights granted to Medsci Publications.