Thesis

Malnutrition among children and adolescents is a major public health concern worldwide. Therefore, number of parameters are used to access the growth pattern and nutritional status among children. Growth patterns can be evaluated through growth monitoring. It helps to understand growth standards and any potential growth problem. Therefore, growth monitoring is considered as an important clinical and public health practice to assess whether a child from a particular country, state or community is developing normally. Food provides nutrition and promotes growth and development. Thus, the standard of growth is directly influenced by the level of nutrition. Poor nutrition hinders optimal growth with negative health outcomes, these conditions are termed as malnutrition. Growth monitoring can assess physical growth profile for a group of population in terms of presence and extent of growth problem and thereby reveals conditions of malnutrition. Subsequently, this provides an opportunity to take preventi