European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Introduction: Growth factor and hormonal growth spurt are additive factors to be considered for growth, along with availability of food and type of food, which is major cause beyond the hidden genetic factors. Various multi-centric studies were conducted to develop the growth charts, few of them were extremely appreciating as ICMR, still faced many controversies. One of the major setbacks faced were urban and rural growth study of children, featuring urgent requirement of growth charts for every nation.
Objectives: To assess and compare the anthropometric nutritional assessment (height, weight, BMI, mid arm circumference) of government and private high school children.
Methods: The study is a cross sectional study, in which students of (age 11-18 years) class VI-X of government school (n= 104) and private school (n=151) were taken for assessing height, weight, mid arm circumference and BMI. Data was entered on MS Excel sheets and unpaired‘t’ test was applied. P value of < 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Unpaired t test results revealed no significant difference in the anthropometric indices, except for in 9^th standard where significant difference was found in height, weight, MAC and BMI and the magnitude was greater in private than in government. MAC of 8^th standard was also found higher in private school and significant difference was appreciated.
Conclusion: There is an urgent need for developing and integrating a nutritional assessment screening program for high school children in terms of anthropometric measurement to counter and prevent the malnutrition. This will in turn develop reference growth charts for the nation.