1Department of Anthropology, Dr. H.S. Gour University, Sagar-470003 (MP), India
2Professor (Adjunct), Department of Anthropology, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA
3Departments of Mathematical Sciences, International Visiting Scholar and Raman Post-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Quantitative Obesity Research, Montclair State University, Montclair, NJ, 07043, USA
4Assistant Professor (Stage 3), Department of Anthropology, Dr. H.S. Gour Central University, Sagar, 470003, Madhya Pradesh, India
Online published on 17 July, 2017.
The objectives of present investigation were to assess the clinical symptoms and level of nutrition among school going girls and boys of 5–18 years of age and to find out its association with the age, sex, parents’ education/occupation and intellectual ability of the subject. This study was conducted on a total of 612 individuals; consisting of 312 girls and 300 boys. It was found that 30.6% boys and girls were suffering from nutritional disorders. 26.6% girls and 34.7% boys were suffer from nutritional deficiency, further 25.2% boys and girls were suffering from dental caries and 5.4% were suffering from other clinical symptoms. It was found that education and occupation of fathers and mothers have impact on health status of girls and boys. As mother's education level increased the percentage of those children with clinical symptoms decreased and whereas it is vice-versa in case of education of father. Most of clinically affected children whose mothers were housewives or fathers were laborer they have normal height, weight and BMI. At the same time some clinically affected children were underweight (4.8%), stunted (6.4%) and undernourished (4.3%). It can be recommended that the school health programme should be strengthening properly, so that the children with any kind of illness could be diagnosed and given treatment.
clinical symptoms, dental caries, underweight, stunted, undernourished
