1. Original Scientific Paper
Abstract

This paper compares the height, weight and BMI of the 15-19 groups of male and female of four eastern region states of India namely Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa using Third National Family Health Survey (NFHS-3) data. The sample sizes of Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Orissa are 176, 236, 375 and 229 for male and 631, 893, 1052 and 829 for female respectively. Data on socio-demographic background of the households like place of residence, social group, education of males and females, and wealth index of the family are taken to see the differential effects of these variables on the teenager’s height and weight. It is well recognized that height and weight are interrelated. These are also related with socioeconomic variables. But, does the relation remain same over all teenager’s (15-19 years) height and weight groups in different eastern region states? The objective of this paper is to find the effect of the socio-economic variables on heights and weights for different groups of persons formed according to the different levels of heights and weights and to see whether there are gender differences in the variation of heights and weights in the four eastern region states. Descriptive studies show a clear positive relation of height and weight with the economic level. In case of BMI, it is the age group which seems to be the most influential factor. The notable feature is that percentages of short height in all the four eastern region states are higher in comparison to India (29.5%) in case of male. For underweight, the percentage of West Bengal only is lower than national average. The result is similar in case of short height for the females also and for underweight all eastern region state’s female shows higher percentage than national average.

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