Socio-Economic and Demographic Influences on Body Mass Index and Thinness among Rural Tribal Adolescent Boys of Kharagpur, West Bengal, India

Pijush Kanti Roy, Gopal Chandra Mandal, Kaushik Bose
2020 Haya The Saudi Journal of Life Sciences  
Adolescent is a transitional phase between childhood and adulthood characterized by marked acceleration in growth. Undernutrition is one of the major problems especially among the tribal adolescent boys and it has been least studied. Hence, the objective of the present study was to evaluate the association of socio-economic and demographic aspects with BMI and prevalence of thinness (low BMI for age) among the tribal adolescent boys. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 370 tribal
more » ... escent boys, aged 10-17 years from Kharagpur Community Development Block II, West Midnapore, and West Bengal, India. Assessment of nutritional status as measured by thinness (Low BMI for age) was done following age and sex specific internationally accepted standard cut offs as proposed by Cole and others (2007) . Linear regression was applied to evaluate the dependence of BMI on various socio-economic factors of the participants. The overall prevalence of thinness was 51.6%. When age specific prevalence are taken into account, the highest (63.6%) prevalence was found among the participants of the age group of 10 years, followed by age group 11 (61.9%) and lowest in case of 16 years (40.0%). 1.6% boys were overweight or obese. Fathers' education, fathers' and mothers' occupation as well as family type were significant (p < 0.05) factors which influenced their BMI. These tribal adolescent boys were experiencing severe nutritional stress as evidenced by a very high prevalence of thinness. Appropriate and effective nutritional interventions are needed to ameliorate their nutritional status.
doi:10.36348/sjls.2020.v05i09.004 fatcat:42fjfmpllrdmvltife665shcpi