Original Research Article Perceived Health among School Going Adolescents in Mumbai: Association with Background Characteristics and Nutrition Variables

Background: Nutritional status of adolescents do not get much attention in social science research in India due to its inadequate recognition as a significant factor affecting health both in adolescence and at later life stages. Less is understood about the relationship of nutritional status with health among adolescents. Objective: This paper aims to examine the association between selected background variables and nutrition related indicators with perceived health among school going adolescents in Mumbai. Data and Methods: Data was collected from 540 adolescents from four schools (two government and two private) studying in 8 th and 9 th standards of Mumbai. Cross tabulations are used to examine the association between the relevant study variables. Results: A majority of adolescents tend to perceive that they are healthy while their nutritional status is far below a desirable level. The analysis indicates that while some background variables show significant association with perceived health, others do not. More importantly most of the nutritional status and perception variables do not show significant association with perceived health. Conclusion: The absence of relationship between nutritional variables and perceived health indicates inadequacies in understanding of the importance of nutrition for health improvement. It is necessary that awareness programmes aimed at improving the nutritional status should highlight the relationship between nutrition and health in adolescence and later life stages