Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder which is a clinically heterogenous condition with a wide range of etiological factors and causing significant public health burden. If diagnosed at an earlier age, early interventions can be started this leads to functional outcome of children with ASD with respect to social, behavior and occupational sphere. Therefore, early detection and intervention are widely recommended in these children. So screening of toddlers who were identified to be “at risk” can be diagnosed using screening questionnaires by interviewing parents. Overall with this study we can conclude that, toddlers identified to be “at risk” and those diagnosed with ASD were not uncommon and M-CHAT-R is a useful screening test for the identification of “at risk” toddlers for Autism Spectrum Disorder in Jharkhand.

Original Research Article Objectives of this work is the study the prevalence of unhealthy behaviours in relation to the BMI status of students in a private school in Ranchi. A private coeducational school located in Ranchi was selected for the study. Data for predictors of obesity was collected from 325 students belonging to standard 6 th , 7 th & 8 th. A pretested questionnaire adapted from WHO"s Global School Health Survey Questionnaire was used. Using anthropometric measurements of the subjects, BMI was calculated and subjects were classified as per their nutritional status. Survey of the existing canteens services was done; and knowledge, attitude & practices of teachers regarding health, dietary and lifestyle behaviours were evaluated using a pretested questionnaire. Both undernutrition (28.0%) and overnutrition (20.9%) existed in the adolescents under study. Subjects showed high prevalence of unhealthy behaviours: high consumption of sweetened beverages (19.1%), frequent consumption of outside food (41.5%), low fruit and vegetable intake (49.5%), physical inactivity (46.8%), excessive TV viewing or playing computer games (41.5%). A total of 32.9% of subjects were "at risk" i.e. had >3 unhealthy behaviours out of which 29.2 % were underweight or normal and 47.1% were overweight or obese. Strong health and nutrition related policies and health promotion programs are very important to encourage an adolescent to adopt a healthy behaviour and to prevent under nutrition and obesity. There is an urgent need to sensitize school authorities and teachers as well as parents regarding healthy food practices and physical activity by students.