NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF SCHOOL CHILDREN IN RURAL AREAS OF DEHRADUN DISTRICT J.Semwal’, A.K.Srivastava’, S.Gupta’, S.Kishore* & R. Chandra® ABSTRACT Research Question: What is the nutritional status of school children in the age group of 6 ~ 14 years? Study design: Descriptive. Setting: Six secondary schools of rural areas of Dehradun District. Study variables: Height, weight, general physical examination. Results: The expected height for age as per ICMR standard was less in both boys and girls of all ages. Prevalence of wasting and stunting in these children was high (52.6% wasted and 26.3% stunted). The 10 ~ 14 years old was affected most. 28.4 % had anemia with girs suffering more (30.2%) than the boys (26.0%). Conclusion: The study reveals the poor nutritional status of school children, underlying this group for targeted services aimed at improvement of their health and nutritional status. Key Words: Schoo! heaith, nutritional status, anemia, INTRODUCTION: Children and adolescents are considered to be the backbone of any nation. There are concerted efforts to provide care to the children under six years of age through various national matemal and child health programmes for ex. ICDS, RCH ete. Apart for “mid day meat” programme which is being run by the Government of India in government run schools, there are no other efforts for children in age group 5 ~ 14 years. They thus remain a neglected group. Schoo! children constitute a greater pool to age group. Since 1909, school health ‘services have been incepted, when for the 1 time medical examination of school children was carried out in city ‘of Baroda’. Since then, various types of government sponsored school health programmes have been launched from time to time, but their progress and achievement has been very slow and incomplete. These services are also limited to the urban and few favoured school. 1 Assistant Professor, 2,3,4 Professor, 4 Professor and Head, Department of Community Medicine, HIMS, Jolly Grant, Swami Ram Nagar, Dehradun ee i dex Medicus (IMSEAR), INSDOC, NCI Current Content, Database of Alcohol & Drug Abuse, National Database in TB & Aled Diseases, IndMED, Entered in WHO CD ROM for South East Asia.J. Semwal et al. Nutritional status of school children in rural areas of Dehradun district The 5 — 14 years old children, if they are fo reach adulthood in a healthy state, it becomes necessary to provide target and concerted services with political commitment so that their nutritional status is improved. The present study was carried out to find out the nutritional status of school children in rural areas of Dehradun city. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The data was collected from six (6) government run schoois'(5'co — educational and 1 git school) in rural areas of Doiwala block of district Dehradun. All the above school has been adopted by the department of ‘Community Medicine to provide schoo! health services where the health v:orkers and the faculty do the follow up of these children once in three months. Mid day meal programme is being run by all the schools and food prepared in the school premises itself. The amount sanctioned is at the rate of Re. 1/- per student. AA total of 930 students of both sexes (377 boys and 553 girls) were examined (Table 1). Girls outnumbered the boys since one of the schools was only for girls. Physical examination of all children was carried out, and their height (nearest to 0.5 cms) and weight in Kgs (nearest to 100 grams) were recorded ‘Anemia was diagnosed from clinical signs such as pallor of conjunctiva / Tongue / nail bed. The mean weight and height of the children according to age and sex were compared with the mean height and weight for age as per the ICMR standards. The nutritional status of the children was Studied by assessing their weight for age (wasting) and height for age (stunting) according to Waterlow classification RESULTS: . (On an average the boys were found to be taller than the girls at ail ages except at age 10 and 11 years, ‘On the other hand, the girls weighted more than the boys after the age of ¥ years. The height and weight of the child increased with the increase in age for both sex (Table -2 & 3). ‘TABLE-t: Distribution of children by age and sex Age in Boys Girls Total Years No. % No. % oe 3 08 4 o7 |_o7 6 43 114 a7 65 | 90 7 4 10.9 68 24 | 109 Be 67 17.8 80, 14.4_| 147 ‘oF 67 178 57. 10.3 | 124 10% 38 15.4 51 92 | 109 cae 37. 98 60. 10.3 | 97 126 3t 82 65. 11.8 | 96 134 22. 58 | 61 10.3 | 83 145 8 24 60. 19.3 | 68 Total a7 100 663_| 100 | 930 Indian J. Prev. Soc. Med Vol. 37 No.1 L 2 7 Jan.-June, 2006J. Semwat et al. ‘Nutritiohal status of school children in rural areas of Dehradun district Comparison of the mean height of the girls with that of ICMR standards indicated that in all they were having less value. On the other hand, boys height was less in all ages except at age 10 and 14 years. When their weight was compared to that of ICMR standards it showed that in both the sexes the mean values of both the sexes were less that recommended by ICMR (Table -4) TABLE-2: Distribution of children as per their mean height (in cm) [Age Boys Girls imyears |W, [Mean | SD | No. ] Mean | SD height height 5+ 3 101.92 53 4 100.6 37 o | 4 | 1054 | 62 | 47 | 1048 | 83 hea at 111.4 435 68 108.6 74 e |e | 59 | 41 | 60 | 143 | a2 oF 67 122.2 57 57 121.4 87 10+ 58 125.7 59 51 127.5 63 11+ 37 129.6 55 60 130.1 68 12+ 31 | 1379 6.1 65 137.4 67 we | 2 | 1425 | 74 | eo | 1424 | 104 14+ 8 153.4 72 60 146.3 66 TABLE- 3: Distribution of children as per their mean weight (in kg) Age Boys Girls | years [No | Mean | SD | No. | Mean sD weight weight oe 3 144 22 | o4 | 132 17 6 43 159 27 [a7 | 155 32 Te 4a 176 24 | 68 | 169 27, 8 7 193 29 [|e | 190 EG oF 67 21.0 40 | 57 | 208 47 10+ 58 226 34 [si | 27 54 1+ 37 253 38 | 6 | 254 46 12+ an 27.9 54 | 65 | 283 57 13+ 22 320 58 | 61 | 326 53 tae e | ms 49 | 60 | 356 70 Indian J. Prev. Soc. Med Vol. 37 No.1 oL 2 78 Jan.-June, 2006