ABSTRACT
Background: Malnutrition in the primary school children is one of important problems in India with long term ramifications. This may be related to faulty dietary habits, socioeconomic condition of the family etc. Malnutrition especially undernourishment can lead to delay in growth and development. Anthropometric assessment of the school children provides the information regarding the nutritional status. The objectives of the study were to find out the prevalence of undernourishment, overweight and obesity in the primary school children of the rural field practice area; to find out the association of socio-demographic variables with nutritional status.Methods: Cross sectional study was conducted from November 2013- February 2014 to assess the nutritional status of the primary school children of the rural field practice areas of our institution in Thumbay region of Dakshina Kannada.Results: The prevalence of undernourishment (thinness and severe thinness) and overweight and obesity was found to be 40.5%, 2.8% and 1.3% respectively. It was also found that significantly higher proportion of male students was having severe thinness compared to females.Conclusions: The present study showed that undernourishment (thinness) was still a problem in the rural area school children.
ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: A cross sectional study was conducted in the rural field practice area of Department of Community Medicine, KMC, Manipal to find out the prevalence of goitre among school children in the age group of 8-10 years. METHODS: A total of 722 children were selected from the study population by the method of probability proportion to size (PPS) stratified sampling giving due representation to both Government and private schools. Children were clinically examined for the presence of goitre and graded according to WHO guidelines. Urine and salt samples were collected from subsample to estimate the urinary iodine excretion level and iodine content in the salt respectively. RESULTS: Over all prevalence of goitre was 30 percent. Prevalence among males was 28.8 percent and among females it was 31.2 percent. In the both sexes goitre rate increased with the advancement of age. Prevalence of grade I and grade II goitre was 29.4 and 0.6 percent respectively. Prevalence of goitre was significantly higher among children who had urinary iodine excretion level less than optimum (<10 mcg/dl). Estimation of iodine content in the salt sample revealed that 48.3 percent of samples had adequate iodine content (>=15 ppm). There was significant increase in the goitre rate as the iodine content in the salt decreased (p=0.01). CONCLUSION: Prevalence of goitre among school children was high and therefore constituted a public health problem in this region.