Impact of Body Mass Index and Age on Mental Health of Adolescents Girls

Abstract

Adolescent girls in India may face poor nutritional status due to low access to healthy food and high mental health symptoms attributed to high stress. Total 72% of infants and 52% of married women have anaemia. Researches indicated that malnutrition during pregnancy causes the child to have increased risk of physical retardation and reduce cognitive abilities. The objective of the present study was to investigate the impact of body mass index and age on mental health of adolescent girls. 1000 adolescent girls were selected through stratified random sampling technique from different government school of Raipur, India. Mental health was measured by Mental Health Battery. Anthropometric measurement and age was collected by the standard procedure. Multivariate analysis of variance and post Hoch test were employed to analyze the data. Results revealed that adolescent girls significantly differ in emotional stability, overall adjustment, autonomy, security-insecurity, intelligence and over all mental health with increasing age. Post Hoch test showed that adolescent girls with low body mass index differ significantly on overall adjustment and self concept dimension of mental health in comparison to adolescent girls with normal BMI. It is concluded from the study that adolescent girls of early years (12-14) must be given environment to develop Emotional Stability, Autonomy, Security-Insecurity and Intelligence. Proper nutrition is needed to improve self concept and over all adjustment. Findings of the study draws attention to create awareness related to mental health and nutrition.