Introduction

Adolescents are the best human resources. But for many years, their health has been neglected because they were considered to be less vulnerable to disease than the young children or the very old. Their health attracted global attention in the last decade only. Though the issues like STDs, reproductive health have been given due importance, but limited attention has been paid to their nutritional status. The girls constitute a more vulnerable group especially in the developing countries where they are traditionally married at an early age and are exposed to greater risk of reproductive morbidity and mortality. Under-nutrition among adolescent girls is a major public health problem leading onto impaired growth and nutritional anaemia, etc.

Aims And Objectives

1. To assess the anthropometric status of school going girls(13-16yrs)

2. To study the relation between Haemoglobin status and Body mass index(BMI)

Material And Methods

Study Area:

Study Participants:

Methodology:

Observations

Figure 1

Table-I AGEWISE MEAN WEIGHT OF GIRLS (n=322)

Table shows that weight of the girls was far less than the reference values in all the age groups.

Overall 22.3% of the girls had wt. <3^rd percentile of NCHS values.

Figure 2

Table-II AGEWISE MEAN HEIGHT OF GIRLS (n=322)

Table shows that about 15% of the girls had height <3^rd percentile of the reference values.

Figure 3

Table-III DISTRIBUTION OF GIRLS ACCORDING TO THE VARIOUS GRADES OF UNDERNUTRITION

Table shows that 79.4% girls were under-nourished (BMI≤18.5). Girls suffering from Chronic energy deficiency grade I, II and III were 23.6%, 25.7% and 30.1 % respectively. Out of the total 322 girls, none of the girls was found to be overweight or obese.

Figure 4

Table-IVANAEMIA IN RELATION TO BMI (n=322)

Analysis of Variance observed a highly significant association between BMI and mean Hb conc. As the BMI improves, a higher mean Hb conc. was observed.

Results

Present study observed that the measurements were less as compared to the NCHS standards. About 80% of the girls were under-nourished (BMI <18.5). Analysis of variance showed that the anthropometric measurements of SC/BC girls were lower than that of other castes. Mean Hb in girls with BMI <16, 16-18.5 and ≥18.5 are 9.49±1.2, 10.08±1.2and 10.83±1.18 respectively and the difference between the groups has been found to be significant (P<0.01).

Verma A et al (2004) observed significant association between BMI and anaemia.¹ Singh N & Mishra CP (2001) observed that 51.43% of adolescent girls from Varanasi were suffering from Chronic Energy Deficiency (CED). Stunting was present in 10% of the girls. Chaturvedi S et al (1996) studied the nutritional status of adolescent girls as assessed by body mass index revealing that 8.1% of adolescent girls suffered from chronic energy deficiency (CED) grade I, 6.6% grade II CED, and 78.8% grade III CED.³ Kapoor G & Aneja S ^{(1992) reported 35.5% of adolescent girls (11-18 years) of Delhi to be undernourished (W/H² less than the 5th percentile of reference standard) 4.}