Publication:

Nutritional status of adolescents in urban and rural area of Kanpur

Background Adolescents are the future generation of any country and their nutritional needs are critical for the well-being of the society. The present study was undertaken to find out the nutritional status of adolescents in Kanpur.

Methods This community based, cross-sectional study was conducted in among 954 adolescents in the age group 10-18 years using simple random sampling. A pre-tested and pre-designed schedule was used to collect the information.

Results The prevalence of under nutrition was 52.09%. Nearly 45.51% and 50.81 adolescents were undernourished in urban and rural areas respectively. A higher proportion of females (56.9%) were found to be underweight as compared to males (44.3%).

Conclusions It is important to strengthen health education on the consumption of iron rich foods and proper implementation of intervention programs that would increase the hemoglobin levels among the adolescents age group through prophylaxis treatment, dietary modification and helminthes control.