A Comparative Study to Assess the Dietary Habits of School Children with Underweight and Normal Weight in a Selected Government Higher Secondary School at Kirumampakkam, Puducherry

The most important thing in life is a good health. It is widely recognized that a healthy childhood is the foundation for a healthy adult life. Infants and children obviously need extra nutrition and proper physical activity and exercise for their growth and they consume the best within the family set up for their growth. Good dietary pattern is essential for building up bones. Habits formed in childhood have a long term impact on health and wellbeing. Over half of the world's underweight children live in India. Dietary habits are the most important thing for being an underweight. So In order to create awareness among school children regarding good dietary pattern the investigator has conducted this study. The design adopted was descriptive comparative survey. Total number of sample was 60. Among this 30 children were from normal weight and 30 children were from underweight was selected by non -probability purposive sampling technique. The underweight and normal weight children were categorized by using CDC growth chart. The data gathered were analyzed by using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The study revealed that the mean dietary habits of underweight children score was 77.4 and the normal weight children score was 95.3, it was higher than the mean of underweight children. The obtained ' p' value was 0.001. Which implies that there was significant difference between the dietary habits of underweight and normal weight children at p<0.05 level. Hence it was inferred that the stated research hypothesis was accepted. The results of this study showed that normal weight children have followed good dietary habits compared to the underweight children.