[b]Somatic Profile of North Kolkata school students[/b]
Journal Title: Healthline - Year 2012, Vol 3, Issue 2
Abstract
[b]Background:[/b] School students of North Kolkata have been investigated for their bio-physical characters to assess the present status of their health and nutrition with morbidity findings if any. Objective: The study was conducted to assess the health and nutritional status of school children in the age group of 12 -17 years and to find out their morbidity pattern. [b]Methods:[/b] Nine hundred and eighteen students of class VI to XII of one higher secondary school for boys of North Kolkata were selected through simple random sampling from the list of three schools of this area. It was a cross-sectional descriptive study. Pre-designed and pre-tested schedule was adopted to collect data through interview and medical examination. Height, weight, medical morbidities were the variables of the study. Simple mean and proportions were the statistical application in the study. [b]Results: [/b]Nutritional deficiency disorders were found among the students of all standard of the school. Anemia and Vitamin B complex deficiency was found in 32.79% and 3.92% respectively in the study population. Height and weight of the students of all classes except XII (7.84%) was found below normal. Accordingly BMI was also found below normal (92.12%) except class XII. Among the students, problem of acuity of vision from 20 feet / 25 feet onwards in any or both of the eyes in the best corrected vision was found to be 24.62 percent. [b]Conclusions:[/b] The study revealed the poor health and nutritional status of school children including presence of anemia, vitamin deficiency, low BMI along with poor acuity of distant vision. This identified a student group for targeted services aiming at improvement of their overall health and nutritional status.
Authors and Affiliations
Palash Das, Mausumi Basu, Gautam Dhar, Ranabir Pal
Keywords
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