Adolescents Girl In India. Editorial Image

An important observation is that about a quarter of adolescent girls get married early and more importantly at least a quarter of them conceive. There is, therefore, a need to develop strategies to improve the nutritional status of adolescent boys and girls to achieve their maximum growth potential. This calls for behaviour changes in the community so that early marriages are not practised. Direct nutrition interventions, particularly tackling high prevalence of anaemia, are required. Consequently, a significant proportion of the adolescent girls could be considered to be at risk due to short stature and underweight.