Name: Abha Khetarpal
Country: India

Year: 2022
Volume: Volume-7, Issue-1 (January-June)
Page Number: 1-4

In India with varying social customs and common beliefs against females there is a high prevalence of malnutrition amongst girls. It is reported that the nutritional status which is often poor during early life gets worsened as the adolescent growth spurt occurs. Girls in rural areas get married early before completion of their growth. The nutritional status and development of young girls is related to their nutritional requirements, dietary intake, dietary practices, cultural traditions and meal patterns. Diets of Indian girls especially in rural areas are inadequate both in terms of quality and quantity. They mainly consume cereal based food but grossly deficient in legumes, animal foods and green leafy vegetables. Against this background, the present study was conducted in a degree college of Haryana in March, 2019 to explore the current nutritional status of 130 young girls between 18-23 years of age. The nutritional status assessment was undertaken by using two techniques i.e. Anthropometric Measurement and Biomedical Impedance. In Anthropometric Measurement mainly three aspects: Height, Weight and BMI (Body Mass Index) were assessed. The height was taken barefoot in centimetres using a stadiometer. The weight was measured in kilogram without shoes and BMI was calculated. Bio-medical impedance was used for analysis of fat percent and visceral fat which was measured by Body Composition Monitor BFS08. The data so collected were compiled in MS Excel and analyzed for each age group using SPSS 16. The mean age of the studied subjects was 20.5 ±1.42 year. The mean height, weight and BMI of studied subjects were 156.34 ±7.52cm, 47.3 ±5.39kg, 19.37 ±1.95kg/m2 respectively which was low in comparison to the standards of ICMR (1990). The data of bio-medical impedance revealed that the fat per cent of the studied subjects lies between 14.31-18.43 per cent which should be 18-23 per cent on an average indicating less body fat and visceral fat between 1.25-2.42 per cent with very low deviations from standards which is quite normal. The studied data made it obvious that that there is a need to initiate intervention strategies for young girls and encourage the girls to improve their dietary intake so that their nutritional status and thereby of coming generations could be improved.
Keywords—Adolescents, nutritional status, intervention, diet, malnutrition