Iron Status of Adolescent Girls (10-15 years) Attending a Government School in Jaipur City, Rajasthan, India

Iron deficiency anaemia is widely prevalent amongst women and children in India. The present work was designed to be an intervention study with nutrient fortified biscuits to ameliorate the micronutrient status of adolescent girls from a low socio-economic background. The baseline data on iron status of 109 adolescent girls (10-15 years) studying in a government school in Jaipur city, India are presented here. The iron status of adolescent girls was determined through haemoglobin, serum iron and serum ferritin levels. The results revealed that 96.3% of the adolescent girls suffered from anaemia, 31.2% of whom had mild deficiency and 65.1% had moderate deficiency. Anaemia was more prevalent in the older age groups. About 31% of the subjects had normal levels while the rest (69%) had low levels of serum iron. Similarly, about 75% of the subjects had low serum ferritin levels. Conclusively, anaemia was highly prevalent in the studied population and the adolescent girls had low haemoglobin, serum iron and serum ferritin levels. It is recommended that the school system be used for micronutrient supplementation to improve their nutritional status as the students are more regimented here for distribution of nutrient fortified food products.