EC Paediatrics

Nutritional assessment includes collecting, integrating and analyzing nutrition related data. It’s the current body status of a person or a population group related to their state of nourishment. The aim was to identify the causative factors of malnutrition and to prevent female adolescents from double burden of disease. This is the descriptive cross sectional study conducted on the female adolescent girls of the different government schools of the Lahore, Punjab. This survey includes both qualitative and quantitative research. This research method includes the dietary assessment of the adolescents including the demographic data. For data collection, semi structured questionnaire was designed and distributed among students. The questionnaire included simple and food frequency questions. The questions were about the dietary intake, height, weight and MUAC of students. The questionnaire also included demographic questions. Weight and height is measured through weighing machine and stadiometer respectively. Food frequency questionnaire has been developed to assess the dietary intake of the adolescents by including the different questions of the food groups. 73% have normal BMI 6% are underweight, 13% are overweight and 6.5% are obese. The majority of the students have their breakfast and aware of the importance of breakfast as it is the motor meal of the day. We concluded that double burden of disease is becoming the major concern of under developed countries as data indicated that students are more exposed towards overweight and obesity range than underweight. It has been found that the majority of students taking breakfast on daily basis but unaware of the healthy food choices.

Keywords: Nutritional Assessment; Nutrition Related Data; Nutritional Screening

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