Research Questions:1. Are all the existing methods for estimating the obesity and overweight in school going children in India equally efficient? 2. How to derive more efficient obesity percentiles to determine obesity and overweight status in school-going children aged 7-12 years old?Objectives:1. To investigate and analyze the prevalence rate of obesity and overweight children in India, using the established standards. 2. To compare the efficiency among the tools with the expected levels in the Indian population. 3. To establish and demonstrate the higher efficiency of the proposed percentile chart.Study Design:A cross-sectional study using a completely randomized design.Settings:Government, private-aided, unaided, and central schools in the Thrissur district of Kerala.Participants:A total of 1500 boys and 1500 girls aged 7-12 years old.Results:BMI percentiles, waist circumference percentiles, and waist to height ratio are the ruling methodologies in establishing the obese and overweight relations in school-going children. Each one suffers from the disadvantage of not considering either one or more of the obesity contributing factors in human growth dynamics, the major being waist circumference and weight. A new methodology for mitigating this defect through considering BMI and waist circumference simultaneously for establishing still efficient percentiles to arrive at obesity and overweight status is detailed here. Age-wise centiles for obesity and overweight status separately for boys and girls aged 7-12 years old were established. Comparative efficiency of this methodology over BMI had shown that this could mitigate the inability of BMI to consider waist circumference. Also, this had the advantage of considering body weight in obesity analysis, which is the major handicap in waist to height ratio. An analysis using a population of 1500 boys and 1500 girls has yielded 3.6% obese and 6.2% overweight samples, which is well within the accepted range for Indian school-going children.Conclusion:The percentiles for school-going children based on age and sex were derived by comparing all other accepted standards used for measurement of obesity and overweight status. Hence, augmenting BMI and waist to height ratio is considered to be the most reliable method for establishing obesity percentiles among school-going children.

Reusable plastic buckets with perforations on the side walls could be used to substitute the conventional polyethylene bags in oyster mushroom cultivation, with no significant difference in yield. Losses due to slight increase in crop duration in buckets will be compensated with a lower rate of contamination. For a unit having a daily output of 100 kg, it was estimated that during 10 years of permanent cultivation following this technique, the cost of cultivation could be reduced to one-tenth and the environmental pollution reduced by at least 730 000 non-degradable polyethylene bags.

Wine was prepared from banana varieties (Grand Naine, Karpooravalli, Poovan, Yangambi (KM-5) and Palayankodan). Banana wine was stored in plain and amber coloured bottles under ambient conditions for three months. After one month of storage, pH and alcohol content showed an increasing trend whereas titratable acidity, total soluble solids, ascorbic acid, total phenols and microbial population showed a decreasing trend. Same trend continued even after two months of storage. At the end of storage period, the total soluble solids and alcohol content remained stable without showing any variation in their values as that of the previous month whereas pH showed an increasing trend. Titratable acidity, ascorbic acid, phenols and microbial population showed a decreasing trend. Colour retention was better in amber coloured bottles. Wine from the variety Poovan had the highest overall acceptability score throughout the storage period.

The prevalence of overweight/obesity among 6000 children at 7-12 years was monitored using the established methodologies. Prevalence rates obtained using percentiles were proximate to that using waist-to-height ratio (WHTR) 0.50 and were on par with the reported rates. The prevalence were worked out with WHTR values from 0.45 to 0.53 and compared with percentiles. The minimum per cent deviation of 5.4 was observed at WHTR of 0.48 (against 6.4% at WHTR 0.50) and further the deviation at this point was distributed near-uniformly (2.6% above and 2.8% below the WHTR), suggesting that this is the optimum cut-off point for children in this region. ROC analysis against percentiles has given a higher sensitivity of 0.630 at WHTR 0.48 in this region and area under ROC curve was 0.827 at WHTR 0.48.

Jam was standardised by incorporating tender coconut pulp at various levels with fruit pulp of pineapple, mango, grapes and papaya. On the basis of nutritional qualities, jam prepared with 25% TCP Tender coconut pulp and 75% pineapple pulp were found to be the best. Jam prepared with 25% TCP and 75% blended fruit pulp were organoleptically more acceptable. The highest gel strength was observed for jam prepared with 25% tender coconut pulp and 75 % blended fruit pulp. The maximum adhesiveness was in the jam prepared using 100% tender coconut pulp. Acidity, moisture, TSS and reducing sugar of the products slightly increased during storage. However, a decreasing trend was observed in the case of total sugar content during storage. The highest fat content was observed in jam prepared using 100% TCP. The mineral content gradually decreased with advancement of storage period.