Assessment of Nutritional Status of Boys and Girls in Government School Children in Rompicherla Mandal Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract

Nutrition is the intake of food to meet the body’s dietary Needs through different sources namely vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods. Good nutrition and well balanced diet with regular physical activities is acceptable. Poor nutrition leads to reduction in immunity of an individual, in other hand increased levels of nutrition leads susceptible to a wide varieties of disease, damage the physical, mental development and reduced productivity. The purpose of this study is to find the nutritional status of school going boys and girls in Government school children in Rompicherla Mandal, Chittoor District of Andhra Pradesh. As we all know they are the future of our country. In view of the the importance of children health care especially, Indian population consist   approximately forty percent are children and that to under the age of 15 years. To assess the anthropometric indices among children. A total number of 613 Government school going children were selected for the present study.  A complete physical examination of the children was conducted and recorded. In the present study out of total 613 school going children 49.43% had overall normal nutritional status, 24.14 % Grade-I, 16.48 Grade-II and 9.95 had overall Grade-III. 23.59% (92) had Grade-I, Grade-II 16.15% (63) and Grade-III malnutrition 11.80% (46) respectively in boys of study area in the Government Schools. Where as in girls over all 51.12 % (114), 25.11% (56), 17.04% (38) and 6.73% (15) respectively had the malnutrition in the study area. In the present study, nutritional status was found highly related to the personal hygiene and socio economic status. Schools need to provide knowledge and awareness about Personnel hygiene, Nutrition.

Keywords: Government schools Nutrition, School Children, Anthropometry, Malnutrition and Dietary intake.