A Comparative and Correlational Survey of Eating Habits and BMI of Adolescent Girls (13–16 Years) in Selected Urban and Rural Schools of Mysore

Adolescent girls constituting nearly 1/10th of Indian population, form a crucial segment of the society as they are the potential mothers and future house makers. An adolescent girl requires all nutrients in good quantities not just for the rapid growth but also to obtain optimal storage for later requirements during pregnancy and lactation. Physical and psychological pressure influence adolescent eating habits. The nutritional status often expressed as body mass index (BMI). The available data indicates that the average BMI among 11–18 years old is considerably lower in the developing world than in industrialized countries.

The aim of this study was to compare and correlate the eating habits and BMI of adolescent girls in selected urban and rural schools of Mysore.

In this study, comparative and correlational survey design was used and simple random sampling was adopted to select 100 adolescent girls, 50 each in urban and rural schools. The eating habits of adolescent girls were assessed using self-administered eating habit scale, and BMI was calculated by the anthropometric measurements. The data were collected and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study results revealed that 54% of the urban school adolescent girls had fair eating habits and 92% of the rural school adolescent girls had good eating habits. 56% and 92% of the adolescent girls had normal BMI from urban and rural schools respectively. The analysis of the findings also revealed that there was a significant correlation between the eating habits and BMI of urban and rural school adolescent girls (urban school r=0.28, rural school r=0.35, p?0.05). There was a significant difference between eating habits of adolescent girls in urban and rural schools (p<0.05) and no significant difference found between BMI of adolescent girls in urban and rural schools. The findings also showed that, a significant association was found between type of diet and eating habits of urban adolescent girls and between income of the family and BMI of rural adolescent girls.

The study concluded that urban adolescent girls have poor eating habits and BMI as compared with the rural adolescent girls. So it is recommended that there is a need to create awareness among adolescent girls regarding the importance of nutrition and health.