Study on prevalence of thinness among adolescents in urban set up in western Tamil Nadu
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This study is aiming to assess the prevalence of thinness among adolescents in urban setup in western Tamil Nadu. As thinness is a common problem in adolescents, we tried to address this vulnerable group needs and to help in alleviating theirproblem. It is a cross sectional study conducted in urban and semi urban school going children from 11-17 years of age. Bothboys and girls included. Anthropometries were measured in all children in these schools belonging to the age group 11-17years.Thinness is defined as BMI < International Cut offs for age and sex defined to pass through BMI 16, 17, and 18.5 at 18 years andgraded as grades 3, 2 and1 respectively through the ages between 2 and 18 years1. The diagnosed cases of thinness werefollowed with questionnaire containing their age, sex, class, socio demographic profile, including economic class, mother, fatheroccupation, educational status, living area, co morbid diseases etc. A total of 11,520 students (5942 boys and 5578 girls) weretaken. The prevalence of thinness among adolescents was 35.5% (boys = 42.7 %; girls = 28.3 %; P = 0.001). Adolescents in11-13year old age group (Adjusted Odds ratio (AOR) = 2.36; 95 % CI: 1.22, 4.08), boys (AOR = 3.22; 95 % CI: 1.52, 4.21) and ruralresidents (AOR = 2.85; 95 % CI: 1.20, 3.94) had significantly higher odds of having severe thinness compared totheircounterparts. Furthermore, boys had higher (AOR = 2.04; 95 % CI: 1.19, 3.55) odds of being thin compared to girls. Agespecificoverall thinness was found to be highest in 12 years (46.3%) of age. Compared to those 11 to 13 years of age, adolescents in 15to 17 years of age were (AOR = 0.44; 95 % CI: 0.23, 0.95) less likely to be thin. Prevalence of grades 1, 2 and 3 of thinness washigher among 11, 12 year old students in our study.
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