Background

Prevalence of malnutrition has been on the rise in developing countries like ours , anthropometric data forms the backbone of assessment for ascertaining the extent of malnutrition .

Material and Methods

A cross sectional observational study was done after choosing schools using cluster sampling technique in the primary school going children of age 6-14 . A random sample of 935 children were selected for the anthropometric measurement like age ,sex ,  height and  weight. Age and Sex Specific smooth percentile curves for Weight , Height and BMI  were created using Lambda , Mu , Sigma (LMS) method . Height, Weight and BMI Values of 3^rd , 10^th ,25^th ,50^th ,75^th and 90^th percentiles  along with Standard Deviation scores were compared with the available standard by Indian Academy of Pediatrics .

Results

It was observed that >95%  of the centile scores obtained in our study population for both sexes were lesser than the centile scores given by Indian Academy of Pediatrics (IAP) . 50^th Percentile scores of both sexes for Height ,Weight and BMI showed significant gap when compared with IAP centile scores .

Conclusions

Presence of such low percentile values when compared with the standard percentile scores for Indian children point to the prevalent malnutrition among school children in the selected Tribal District of Latehar .Interventions focusing on improving nutrition among school children should be employed.