Background: Obesity has emerged as one of the major health problems in recent years. This increasing prevalence has implications in health issues in later parts of life. Life style factors and diet practices are the attributed factors to the development of obesity.Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted among 1011 adolescent school children in Kozhikode corporation area, Kerala, South India after getting necessary permissions. A semi structured questionnaire which contained questions related to socio demographic characters, diet, physical activity and other known risk factors of obesity in adolescents was administered.Results: 76.8% of the study subjects were of normal weight, while 15.5% were underweight (thinness- 9% and severe thinness- 6.5%). 1.9% were obese and 5.8% were overweight. The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was 7.7%. Nuclear family, better family education, better SES, skipping breakfast and consumption of more sweets were associated with obesity.Conclusions: Preventive and promotive measures to reduce the burden of obesity needs to be initiated from early childhood and must be insisted to the family members also. School based lifestyles and behavioural change measures, encouraging school teachers to actively participate in these measures, active involvement of school children in regular sports activities, periodic anthropometric assessment and intervention when needed along with sensitization of parents towards the consequences of obesity are some of the measures to prevent the rising epidemic.

Background: COVID-19 pandemic is a major challenge to the entire world. Since it is droplet borne preventive measures can reduce the transmission effectively. So, assessing awareness regarding COVID-19 preventive measures and reason for non-adherence to them will be really helpful.Methods: Data has been collected from 502 patients attending an urban centre of mid-Kerala after obtaining informed written consent.Results: Mean age of study population was 52.96±SD 14.52 years ranging from 18 to 89. Males were 52%. Majority of the participants 467(93%) were aware about COVID-19 preventive measures. The main source of information was television and newspaper. Awareness was less among those with low educational status (90.9%) and among house wives (90.2%). Main reasons for non-adherence were constraints of space for social distancing, 18 (3.6%) forgetting to adhere 28 (5.6%) for avoiding unnecessary touching and not feeling the importance of adherence 10 (2%).Conclusions: Majority of study participants were aware about COVID-19 preventive measures even if a small proportion were not practicing it and were not aware about it. Therefore, along with the measures to tackle the reasons for non-adherence, programmes on health education regarding COVID-19 preventive measures should be planned and implemented focusing on these vulnerable groups for successful prevention of the disease.

Background: Childhood obesity is increasing in India in recent years. The recent economic development and nutritional transition has been attributed to the increase in childhood obesity. Obesity in childhood predisposes to many cardiovascular/endocrinal problems in later years of life. This problem is taking an epidemic lever in Kerala too. Objective was to assess the prevalence of obesity among affluent school children in Thrissur.Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted among 1104 private school children in Thrissur, Kerala, South India between November 2019 to October 2020. Prior permission to conduct the study was obtained from the respective authorities. Parent assent was obtained. A semi-structured questionnaire was used. Anthropometric measurements- height and weight were measured using the standard methods prescribed in the World Health Organization STEPwise approach to surveillance (WHO-STEPS) field manual.Bodymass index (BMI) was calculated and classified as per WHO guidelines for their respective ages.Results: 13.9% were overweight and 7.3% were obese. The combined prevalence of overweight and obesity was 21.2%. Prevalence of obesity and overweight was 23.7% among boys and 18.2% among girls. The prevalence of overweight and obesity increases with age.Conclusions: Appropriate preventive measures like change in food habits and life style practices, increasing physical activities, health education for parents and children, needs to be taken.

Background: Air pollution leads to several health effects, the major systems affected were respiratory, dermatology, neurology and ophthalmology. This study is an attempt to find out various health effects of pollution, from a food factory to the nearby residents.Methods: A cross sectional comparative study was performed on 248 residents nearby a food factory, situated in rural area of Thrissur district and a comparative group of 266 participants taken 5km away from this factory.Results: Both the groups were comparable in socio-demographic profile except religion and occupation. There was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05) between the use of firewood in both the groups. The symptoms of major systems involved were respiratory (odds ratio 3.9, 95% CI 2.2 to 6.8), dermatological (odds ratio 18.3, 95% CI 8.3 to 40.7), neurological (odds ratio 13.5, 95% CI 4.1 to 44.7) and ophthalmological (odds ratio 5.9, 95% CI 2.6 to 13.6). The major symptoms complained by them were pruritus (32.7%), skin lesions (17.7%), breathlessness (16.9%), itching eye (13.3%) watering from eye (11.7%) and headache (11.3%). All these symptoms among the case group compared to control group were very high and these associations were highly statistically significant (p<0.001).Conclusions: This study showed an increased occurrence of adverse health effects among the individuals who were residing near the food factory. Therefore this study points out the possibility of environmental pollution (mainly air pollution) as a main factor for the increased prevalence of symptoms among those who reside nearby the factory.