Almost Half of Indian Children Lack Healthy BMI

By Vasudha Bhat , Onlymyhealth editorial team

Nov 29, 2014

Weak Children In India While cautioning about the unhealthy future of the current generation, a countrywide study showed that school children in the country lack behind in health and fitness parameters as 40 percent of the kids do not have a healthy BMI and the required endurance level.

In the study for the academic year 2013-14, 1,15,559 children who fell in the age group of 7 to 17 years were covered. These children were from 287 schools across 85 cities from 23 states.

While drawing a comparison based on gender, it was found that 65 percent of girls have healthy BMI scores than 59 percent of boys.

But, the girls scored lower than boys in other fitness parameters like anaerobic capacity, flexibility, upper body strength and abdominal strength. This indicated that the girls still lack behind in overall fitness, according to the study.

Children all across the five regions of the country were found to be almost equally unfit with unhealthy BMI scores of 37% (Central), 54% (East), 38% (South) and 36% (West), according to the EduSports, the physical education and school sports enterprise.

It was also found that non-metros scored better BMI levels and fitness parameters than metros. Children in non-metros had better flexibility, stronger upper body strength and a marginal overall BMI.

The CEO and co-founder of EduSports, Saumil Majumdar said "the lack of health and fitness among such a large number of children yet again proves that physical activity/sports in schools should be viewed as an important part of the curriculum for the overall development of a child".