Nutritional status, level of intelligence and participation in extracurricular activities of school children
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Date
2007
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UAS, Dharwad
Abstract
The study was conducted in Dharwad taluka to assess nutritional status, socio
economic status, level of intelligence and participation in extracurricular activities of rural
children of third standard ranging from 7 to 10 years. A total of 260 children were randomly
selected from four villages. The socio economic status of the respondents was assessed by
using combination scale given by Aron et al. (1969), Venkataramaiah (1983) and Hauser
(1994). The nutritional status was assessed by anthropometric measurements. The children
were categorized according to Waterlow classification (1972). The 39 per cent of total sample
(102 children) representing three category of nutritional status were selected for assessment
intelligence.
The level of intelligence was assessed by Stanford Binet Intelligence Scale (1960).
Participation of the children in extracurricular activities was assessed using self structured
interview schedule. Suitable statistical tests were applied to find out the relations between
different variables.
The results highlighted that 71.92 per cent of respondents belonged to normal
nutritional status. While 14.32 per cent belonged to wasted (short duration malnutrition) and
13.42 per cent were stunted (long duration malnutrition). Irrespective of age, gender and
nutritional status all the children performed successfully in vocabulary component of
intelligence. Whereas, only 60-87 per cent of children performed successfully in quantitative,
pattern analysis and memory for sentence component of intelligence test. The maximum
number of children (65%) failed in comprehension component of intelligence test and only
35 per cent of children performed the successfully.
The significant correlation (r=0.31 and 0.25) was found between socio-economic
status, nutritional status and level of intelligence of children. Thus the increase in socioeconomic
status and nutritional status improved the level of intelligence and participation in
extracurricular activities of the children.