Prevalence of undernutrition among Telaga adolescents: An endogamous population of India

Undernutrition among adolescents is of public health importance in developing countries including India. However, there is little information on nutritional status of adolescents in urban West Bengal. In view of this present study was conducted to ascertain the level of undernutrition among Telaga adolescents in Kharagpur town. A total of 930 (472 boys and 458 girls) children were measured. The mean BMI of children had shown a consistently increasing trend in both sexes from age of 13 years onwards. Moreover, there is a gender bias in favour of girls in higher mean BMI at all ages except 10 and 13 years. The overall prevalence of undernutrition was 28.60%. The rates were significantly higher among boys (37.59 %) compared with girls (19.43%). In conclusion, nutritional status of the studied children is not impressive especially among early adolescent and boys, respectively. There is urgent need intervention strategy through community based nutrition awareness.