Correlation of Nutrition with Parental Literacy Status among School Going Adolescent Children in Telangana: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: National Family Health Survey-4 reports that 44.8% of boys and 41.9% of girls aged 15-19 are underweight. Globally, there is a lacuna of data on early adolescent children (10-14 years). Aim: To estimate the prevalence of malnutrition among school going adolescent children in Medchal, Telangana and also to assess the correlation between nutritional status of adolescent children and their parents’ literacy level and socio-economic class. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in 1000 adolescent children aged between 10-16 years. Pilot study was conducted on 110 students to test the questionnaire comprising basic data and socio-demographic characteristics before starting the study. Weight and height were measured. Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated and based on BMI, children were classified into undernutrition, normal, overweight and obese. Parental literacy was ascertained. Parents were divided into five categories of socio-economic class according to BG Prasad Classification. Primary endpoint measured was prevalence of malnutrition among adolescent children and secondary endpoint measured was correlation of mother’s and father’s literacy status with nutritional status which was ascertained using spearman’s rank correlation test. Data was analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21.0. Results: Prevalence of undernutrition and overnutrition (overweight and obesity) was 48.5% and 4.6% respectively. There was statistically significant (p=0.046) difference between boys and girls with respect to prevalence of undernutrition and overnutrition. Majority of undernourished boys (49.1%) and girls (46.8%) were 13-14 years old. Spearman’s rank coefficient (rho-ρ) showed strong positive correlation between nutrition and socio-economic class (ρ:0.706) with moderate and weak correlation seen for mothers’ education (ρ:0.425) and fathers’ educational status (ρ:0.333), respectively. Conclusion: Undernutrition remains to be a common problem among early adolescents. Socio-economic class and literacy level of parents play significant role in nutrition of adolescents. At school level, adolescent children and their teachers need to be empowered to understand better about the necessity and impact of maintaining a normal nutritional status on their future health.

Keywords

• adolescent age group
• body mass index
• malnutrition
• socio-economic status