Nutritional Profiling of Adolescent Students of Government Secondary School of Pali Village Under Takhatpur Tehsil

Adolescent nutrition directly influences both physical development and academic performance. Every regional area has its own culture and nutritional sources inside India. Therefore, each area needs to be evaluated scientifically to maintain adolescent health across India. Hence, present study was done tomeasure nutritional profile of high school adolescent students through standard Body Mass Index (BMI) matrix. A cross-sectional anthropometric assessment was conducted with 155 adolescent students (99 girls and 56 boys) from a government secondary school in Pali Village, under Takhatpur Tehsil who were enrolled in the 9th and 10th grades. Present results showed significant female majority with 58.1% of 9th grade and 72.6% of 10th grade representation. BMI analysis revealed that slightly Low BMI category was prevalent which affected 59.6% of girls and 58.9% of boys. Most often slightly Low BMI category does not require immediate action in terms of medical condition. But it requires a routine awareness program to prevent potential health issues when this persists for long time along with other medical complications. A slightly high BMI category was also observed in 40.4% of girls and 41.1% of boys which is an indicator of obesity. The present study has certain limitations. For instance, it was conducted with a restricted sample size and inherent constraints of using BMI as sole indicator of nutritional health without accounting for muscle mass and fat distribution. Future prospects of present study could be expanded with large sample across diverse educational districts and integration of more rigorous dietary assessment methods to obtain more authentic and systematic scientific nutritional profiling of adolescents across study area.