Indian Children

Two in five kids don’t have right BMI: Survey

Two out of five kids in India were found not to have the right Body Mass Index (BMI) levels, according to a health and fitness survey which covered 77,669 children in 176 schools across the country.

The children were in the age group of 7-17 years from 176 schools in 68 cities and 17 states. The fitness parameters were measured over a period of 24 months.

The parameters included flexibility, lower and upper body strength, abdominal strength and BMI which evaluates a person’s body weight in proportion to the height.

“In a comparative study between boys and girls, it was found that 66 percent girls have healthy BMI scores compared to 59 percent boys. The primary causes for higher BMI are sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy eating habits and little or no play,” the report said.

It also states that high BMI is a direct indicator of the onset of obesity which can lead to several health problems including type 2 diabetes, heart ailments and high blood pleasure as early as adolescence.

The fourth edition of Edusports annual school health and fitness survey of school going children in urban India was conducted by EduSports, a school sports and physical education company.

According to the survey, children in all five regions of the country were deemed equally unfit with unhealthy BMI scores of 37 percent (central), 39 percent (east and north), 37 percent (south) and 38 percent (west).

Encouraging schools to increase their physical education periods, and proposing a structured sports programme as a solution, Saumil Majumdar, CEO and co-founder of Edusports said: “A structured sports programme is the way forward, if any change in the fitness levels of children is desired. It is disheartening to witness an unhealthy generation that is otherwise ahead of its time.”

“The alarming fitness standards that have emerged in our annual study, again prove that physical activity/sports in schools should be viewed as an important part of the curriculum for the overall development of a child,” he added.

Source; News Track India

1 mn deaf children in India awaiting medical aid: Natarajan

Noting that about one million deaf children in the country are in need of modern medical treatment like cochlear implantation, Union Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan today said a holistic effort by government, medical fraternity and others would help in propagating the technology for the benefit of such kids.

“Even though more than 20,000 cochlear implantations have thus been done across India, we still face an uphill task with potentially one million children awaiting implantation, for many of whom cost of implant is a deterrent,” Natarajan said.

She said this fact has come to light from the Central government’s deafness survey titled “The National Program for the Prevention and Control of Deafness”. The minister was speaking after inaugurating the 9th Asia Pacific Symposium on Cochlear Implants and Related Sciences (APSCI 2013) here.

“States like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala have taken the initiative for totally funding cochlear implants through their ‘Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Schemes’, which has motivated other states to follow up in the same way,” Natarajan informed.

She observed that a holistic effort by government, in collaboration with medical fraternity and society, can make a “remarkable transition in the lives of the deaf children in bringing them out of the gloomy world of silence, onto the vibrant world of sound.”

“Such an effort can be fulfilled only when technology is propagated to all rural areas across the country and the success of such an effort would lead to realising a deafness free India in the near future,” Natarajan said.

The minister said the science of deafness was undergoing rapid changes in recent times. “…There is a need for updating the recent advances among the medical and allied fraternity (otolaryngologists, audiological scientists etc) and the symposium is a step in that direction,” she said.

The APSCI 2013 is being attended by over 1,000 delegates from around 60 countries across the globe.

Source: Business Standard