Prevalence of Undernutrition and Effect of NEP on the Dietary Pattern of College Going Girls (15- 20 Years) in Mumbai

Aim: To assess the prevalence of undernutrition and to study the effect of Nutrition Education Program (NEP) on dietary pattern of adolescent girls (15 to 20 years) in Mumbai.

Place and Duration of the Study: Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, S.N.D.T. Women’s University, Matunga, Mumbai (India), between December 2018 to February 2019.

Methodology: For this study, Pre-test and Post-test experimental research design was used. 200 adolescent girls were selected to assess their dietary patterns and nutritional status through purposive random sampling method. Nutritional parameters such as height for age, weight for height and weight for age were calculated along with 3 days 24-hour diet recall among adolescent girls.

Results: Prevalence of undernutrition was observed among adolescent girls. The overall mean consumption of energy, protein and carbohydrate was less as per the ICMR 2010 guidelines for adolescent girls. The mean consumption of day 1 energy was increased from 1515 ± 127 to 1623 ± 127. Similarly increase in the mean consumption of day 1 protein (from 38.20 ± 6.46 to 43.90 ± 6.45) and carbohydrate (from 353.90 ± 39.88 to 387.30 ± 37.75) was also documented. However, the fat consumption also seemed to be increased (from 45.70 ± 4.52 to 48.40 ± 4.54 on day 1) which might be due the consumption of outside High Fat High Salt (HFHS) food.