Determinants of dietary profile of higher secondary school children
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Date
2003
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Department of Home Science, College of Agriculture, Vellayani
Abstract
The study entitled “Determinants of dietary profile of higher secondary school children” is proposed to assess the dietary profile of the higher secondary school children and to ascertain the influence of selected factors like socio economic and domestic environment, knowledge attitude, dietary habits, preference, work load, time utilization, their psychosocial adjustments and also their perceptions on gender specific discrimination.
The study was carried out on 100 boys and 100 girls studying XI standard selected from three higher secondary schools of urban and rural areas of Thiruvananthapuram educational district. The respondents belonged to the age group of 16-17 with the majority from Hindu OBC community and mainly first born from small sized nuclear families. Most of them hailed from either lower, middle or middle income families owning their own houses with tiled roofs and possessing the minimum necessities like water, electricity and sanitary facilities and also conveniences like labour saving kitchen appliances, refrigerator television and also vehicles for transportation.
The anthropometric measurements of the sample revealed them as below the NCHS standard in height, weight and MUAC with very poor BMI. All girls have low haemoglobin level while for boys it is normal. The majority of the adolescents possess nutritional deficiency symptoms like anaemia, angular stomatitis, thyroid enlargement, bleeding gum etc. Regarding their food intake, their food consumption is found to be inadequate in quantity and nutrient content. The assessment of their food preference and dietary habits indicated that they prefer mostly sweets, snacks and fast foods like adolescents all over the world and least preference are given for pulses and vegetables particularly leafy vegetables. Majority of them are in the habit of skipping all the main meals and thriving on nibbling snacks, savories or tit bits and soft drinks. Though they have a positive attitude towards nutrition, health and food, their knowledge in these areas are not very good. Most of them live on negative energy balance with more energy expenditure than intake though they indulge mainly in moderate activities. But their time is loaded with academic activities like school, homework, coaching classes that they rarely get time for food, recreation or personal activities. In the areas of psychosocial adjustments also the results are not very positive but negative with them securing poor score mainly in areas of achievement, social, self-confidence and family relationships. But fortunately they do not perceive that gender discrimination exist in their family. When the association of various factors with the Dietary Profile Index developed was studied many factors like dietary habits, work load, psychosocial adjustments, knowledge and attitude towards nutrition, health and food are found to have profound and significant influence on one or other. Characteristics included under dietary profile are mainly nutritional status, health status and food consumption. Another interesting result is that almost in all the variables studied rural and urban variation and sex wise differences have a significant impact. Rural sample as well as girls from both regions are ranked as much below the national and international standards in BMI and anthropometric measurements with poor scores in most of the other areas studied particularly in their food consumption. The boys and urban sample though do not reach the standard profile are comparatively better.
This implies the need for more nutrition education to adolescents and their parents and also in initiating steps to improve the dietary profile of the adolescents and to reduce their workload. More research to have a systematic distribution of adolescent’s time, giving enough time for food, work and recreation, is recommended. Special attention and intervention programmes with supplementary measures are needed to improve the quality of life, health and nutritional status of adolescent girls to guarantee safe motherhood and reduced health risks in adolescent girls the future mothers, and also to their children and thus to community and nation as a whole today and in future.
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