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 11-17 years.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 years 1 . 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 in 11-13year 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 to theircounterparts. 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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