Surveying the nutritional status of school students of Shahrood city and some related factors in 2004

Introduction: Children, due to childhood peculiarities are vulnerable so being aware of their nutritional status will lead to the betterment of scheduling in education and health policy making. It has turned to be evident that proper and healthy nutrition shares and influences learning and brings about the enhancement of investment in educational affairs and resulting in national achievements. Material and Methods: In this cross-sectional study (descriptive analytic), the nutritional status of school students of 6-12 years of age and some related factors were studied in Shahrood. Through cluster method, out of 30 elementary schools- including 18 boy and 12 girl's schools – were chosen, and 630 subjects were randomly assigned. To determine the nutritional status the anthropometric methods were used and compared with NCHS (National Center for Health Statistics) standards. The nutritional status below -2SD was considered as an index of malnutrition and above or equal to -2SD as normal. Registering and analyzing the assembled data were done using SPSS and Epi-info soft wares. For determining the relationship between the nutritional status and independent variables X2 was used. Results: The malnutrition prevalence percent in relation with W/A, H/A, and W/H indices were found to be 6.5, 8.1, and 5.9, respectively. Regarding the aforementioned indices, the malnutrition prevalence among the students whose mothers were illiterate and their fathers were of low education was significantly higher than the students with literate mothers and higher educated fathers. A significant relationship was also found between all three indices due to parental occupation and present malnutrition. Moreover, malnutrition prevalence in relation with the trine indices was significantly higher among the public school students than the private school students. Conclusion: According the yielded results of the study, malnutrition is prevalent among the school students and the highest rate of malnutrition is of stunting kind. It has been also detected that the past mal-nutritional status had role on children to whom many factors such as parent’s education, their occupation and the kind of school proved to be effective. In all, for decreasing the rate of malnutrition, proper nutritional training to students at schools and their parents can be a suitable solution for this health problem.