ABSTRACT
Background: More than a quarter of the total world population is anemic and half of them have iron deficiency anemia. Many studies done have shown that iron fortified legume staples are important source of proteins and non- heme iron in children; all infants treated with oral iron and visited weekly to record iron intake, feeding, and health showed improvement in cognitive, motor, and social-emotional development hand washing with soap and hand finger nail clipping reduced prevalence of anemia. So we designed this study to find out the cause of low hemoglobin in healthy females and its correlation with diet, weight and body mass index. Material and Methods: This open-label, prospective, observational study was conducted in 90 healthy volunteers belonging to nearby areas. The following parameters were observed and recorded: height, weight, body mass index (BMI) and hemoglobin estimation and questionnaire was given to the participants to record dietary intake. Results: All the volunteers completed the study were of an average age of 20.28±0.10 years and had average hemoglobin of 11.91 ± 0.11gm/dl and the average body mass index (BMI) was 21.73 ± 0.33 (kg/m2) respectively. It has been observed that haemoglobin has non-significant (p>0.05) correlation with age, weight, height and BMI. Majority of volunteers took more than three meals per day; eating food outside on one-two occasions per week and reported that their food was fried. Most of the participants reported consuming small proportions of food with fruits and milk being essential component. Conclusion: To conclude our study found that the participants although were not anaemic they had haemoglobin on the lower side of normal values and there was no correlation between with age and BMI.