Nutritional status of adolescent girls from a community in Maharashtra - A cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: Adolescent girls are future mothers. Nutritional status is important determinant of their physical growth and development, which in turn determines the reproductive outcome. Health education and nutritional supplementation is important in this regard. Action is required to improve the same. Results: Anthropometric measurements from 200 adolescent girls were collected. Age wise 50 th percentile of height and weight of these adolescent girls, for each completed year was compared with 50 th percentile of height and weight of ICMR study. It was observed that height of adolescent girls between 10 and 15 years of age and weight of the girls between 10 and 12 years was more when compared with ICMR study. Conclusion: In the present study, nutritional status of adolescent girls appeared to be better than that of ICMR study; this may be because of overall development that has occurred over the decade. Although there was no significantly higher nutritional status in Karad, the trend appears to be higher.