Abstract

Background: Adolescence, a phase of transition both physically and mentally falls in the age group of 10-19 as per the WHO definition. Today, 1.2 billion adolescents stand at the crossroads between childhood and adulthood and majority of the world’s adolescents (88%) live in developing countries. Any lack of knowledge regarding their health status, nutritional status, and needs, will affect the development of the individual as well as the nation as they are the building blocks of nation. Hence, the community has a collective responsibility to ensure that adolescence does, in fact, become an age of opportunity. Objectives: (i) To determine the proportion of morbidity among adolescent school girls of Bengaluru city-south zone. (ii) To assess the relationship between morbidity and nutritional status of adolescent school girls.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among adolescent school girls for 4 months - September - December 2015. The study sample size was calculated as 500 based on the previous study, where the prevalence of morbidity among school girls was 45%.
Results: The mean age of girls was 13.79 ± 0.85 years. Mean height of girls was 153.63 ± 9.95 cm, mean weight 42.7 ± 8.93 kg, and mean body mass 2 index 18.03 ± 3.23 kg/m . 324 (64.8%) girls had healthy weight and 137 (27.4%) were underweight. Stunting in 67 (13.4%) girls. A total of 304 adolescent girls (60.8%) had morbidity at the time of our visit to schools. Significant morbidity history in the past 2 years was seen in 51 (10.2%) girls. Conclusion: Health education about consuming nutritious food and hygienic practices such as hand washing should be imparted. Clean toilets, hand wash facilities, adequate lighting and ventilation and supply of clean drinking water are some of the necessary things to be taken care in the school premises.