InnoHEALTH magazine Volume 3 issue 3 | Página 40

Contracting lifestyle diseases in adulthood, reveals a recent study By InnoHEALTH Editorial Team A recent study has found that about 10% of school children in Bengaluru are obese, while 13.8% children are at risk of contracting lifestyle diseases in adulthood with waistlines which are more than half their height. School-based screening of 104,105 children studying in 138 private schools has revealed some alarming trends on school students in Bengaluru. The study was conducted by AddressHealth, provider of health 40 Volume 3 | Issue 3 | July-September 2018 services in schools for children in India. The survey data was compiled over the current academic year and revealed a significant degree of malnutrition (both over and under nutrition) among children - with 9.2% of children being obese and another 13.7% children falling in the overweight category (over nutrition) while about 8.5% of them are too thin for their age (undernutrition). Apart from this, 28.6% school children have dental caries (cavities) while 15.1% have newly detected/ worsening vision problems. In addition, more than 200 children had previously undetected cardiac murmurs, and 70 children had previously undetected hearing defects. Commenting on the survey results Dr. Anand Lakshman, Founder and CEO, AddressHealth, said, “Children are increasingly vulnerable due to a variety of lifestyle and environmental factors such as proliferation of fast food options, lack of physical activity, too much screen time etc. We believe