Nutritional status of low socioeconomic school children at Srakaew Temple, Ang Thong.

Abstract

Nutritional deficiency in school children is one of the major health problems in Thailand. This study was undertaken to investigate the nutritional status in 240 poor adopted school children who were classified as low socioeconomic. Biochemical parameters were measured for detecting early signs of nutritional deficiency before the clinical signs developed. Serum protein and albumin levels did not show statistically significant different between the protein energy deficiency group and the normal group (p greater than 0.05, p greater than 0.05). Fifty-four point five per cent of these children showed sign of vitamin B2 deficiency, 13.6 per cent of them with activity coefficient greater than 1.8, indicating the low protein intake of this group of children. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the vitamin B2 level between the normal and protein calorie malnutrition groups (p greater than 0.05). According to our study, the prevalence of anemia among these children was 53.1 per cent. Moreover, the difference in hemoglobin level between these two groups was found with statistical significance (p less than 0.05).