Background: India is home to 77 million diabetics. Roughly 30% of overweight people have diabetes and 85% of diabetics are overweight. Young adults are especially prone to diabetes due to increased junk food consumption and sedentary lifestyle. Many young adults would be leading a life as diabetic if they are not educated about and screened for the risk factors. This will also allow us to timely strategize effective prevention therapies.
Methods: This was a Cross sectional study conducted among 210 young adults aged between 18-35 years and are affiliated to a medical college in Chengalpattu. Two validated study tools were used: Indian diabetic risk score (IDRS) and International physical activity questionnaire (IPAQ). Frequency, Chi-square test, One Way ANOVA and correlation was used for analysis.
Results: 36.7% were obese. 27.1% and 55.2% had high and moderate risk of Diabetes mellitus respectively. BMI showed statistically significant association with IDRS risk. 53.3% of study participants were physically inactive. Age and gender were significantly associated with physical activity and Total MET min/week. Negative correlation was seen between IDRS score and Total MET minutes/week.
Conclusion: There is an urgent need to screen the young adults for risk of diabetes and thereby reduce the incidence. Indian youth are at high risk for diabetes, which calls for an urgent action plan through intensive efforts to promote lifestyle modifications.
Background: An adolescent in the age group of 10 – 19 years is subjected to the vicious cycle of early marriage, early and repeated pregnancies, poor nutrition and ill health. Betterment can only occur by educating them and promoting health awareness and healthy behavior among them. A study to identify the lacunae in awareness levels among this demographic and measures to overcome the same through targeted education is the need of the hour.Objectives: The objectives of this study are to assess the existing Reproductive Health awareness among adolescent girls and to evaluate the change in awareness levels after educational intervention.Methods: An educational interventional study was carried out in high schools and pre university colleges in a city in south India. A total of 800 students from Class VIII to XII from 6 educational institutions were studied using a standardized, pre validated questionnaire.Results: The mean age of the study population was found to be 14.91 (+ 1.45) years. Teaching intervention improves knowledge on reproductive and sexual health (p < 0.001). Predictors of poor pre intervention knowledge levels: those with uneducated fathers (OR= 0.31, p=0.005); not on social networking sites (OR= 0.23, p<0.001); lower age (early adolescence) (OR= 2.46, p<0.001); school going adolescents (OR= 3.47, p<0.001)Conclusion: This study highlights the gross lacunae present among adolescent girls with respect to reproductive and sexual health awareness. Various measures must be put into place to ensure better reproductive health of the adolescent.
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