Nutritional Anthropological Physical Development Clinical Characteristics and Biochemical Parameters Among Children

By Aparna A

Anthropology, the scientific study of man in time and space embraces both socio-cultural and biological aspects of man from the point of variation and evolution. Biological Anthropology concentrates mainly on the study of biological variation for a given set of characters such as Demographic, Anthropometric, Dermotoglyphic, Physiological, Serolo

• Language: English
• Publisher: hrithik
• Release date: Dec 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781805453628

Book preview

Nutritional Anthropological Physical Development Clinical Characteristics and Biochemical Parameters Among Children

Mrs. A. APARNA

Tables of Contents

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 2

AREA AND PEOPLE

Chapter 3

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Chapter 4

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Anthropology, the scientific study of man in time and space embraces both socio-cultural and biological aspects of man from the point of variation and evolution. Biological Anthropology concentrates mainly on the study of biological variation for a given set of characters such as Demograph ic, Anthropometric, Dermotoglyphic, Physiological, Serological, Biochemical and other Genetic variables in human populations. The unit of study in Biological Anthropolog y is generally, the Mendelian population or Endogamous group.

Several studies are undertaken in this direction by selecting a particular population and specific set of characters to explain biological variation. On the basis of endogamy, habitate, social structure, rituals.traditional practices etc.

population can be viewed as tribe, caste, religious group etc.

In India, a good number of Tribal and the Caste population s exist who differ in terms of ethnicity, language, geography, economy, socio-cultural and allied aspects. Several scholars attempted to report various biological characters of different population groups in India, particularly from Andhra Pradesh.

The study of growth and development known as auxology is important in elucidating the mechanism of evolution, particularly morphological characters or physical features which are subjected to alteration, and heritable through generations. In general , growth refers to structural aspects, while development to functional aspects of an organ in human body. At individual level, growth and

development studies are important from the point of medical, social and economic perspectives; while at population level it has ecological, physiological, nutritional, evolutionary and historical significance.

The term growth and development can be viewed separately, although it is difficult to draw a clear-cut line between them. Growth may be defined as the increment in body size of an individual until the maximum size attainable for (his/her) genetic constitution at a specific environment. Growth is also cal ed as

Catchall (Count, 1955) because it can occur through an increase in cell size or an increase in intracellular material besides the ef ect of hormonal changes.

Garn (1952), refered growth to changes in magnitude and increments in size of organs or increase in thickness of tissues or changes in the size of the individual as a whole. On the other hand, the term development is defined as functional maturation of the body and the progressive cha nges that occur in an organism's life history as wel as changes in the complexity and proportion.

Growth and development are intimately linked in time but practical y independent (Gran,1952). However, both the processes are common to all living organisms. From the point of patterns of growth, it is evident that growth takes place from prenatal to certain age of postnatal period and then virtually ceases for most of the organs in an organism, whereas development continues even after it, in terms of physical changes mostly marked during adolescence.

The growth pattern of any species have both genetic and environmental components. The genetic constitution of an individual with the specific sets of genes influence endocrine glands and growth controlling hormones to bring

changes in growth pattern. Further, the intrauterine environment, size of uterus, weight at birth, order of birth, single or multiple pregnancy, age at conception and maternal age at delivery etc. are other biological variables that act upon growth process, in addition to socio-economic and nutritional factors.

The environmental components include both physical and cultural factors. In physical environment, climate plays little effect on the rate of growth.

Nutrition, one of the most important environmental factors, plays a crucial role in growth process. The effect of malnutrition, diet, indigenous food system etc.(Gaulin and Kenner, 1977)\hat bring changes in the supply of essential nutrients in specific quantities result in nutritional disorders such as kwashiorkor, protein energy malnutrition (PEM) etc. and thereby affect the growth of an individual.

Socio-cultural practices particularly dietary taboos, avoidance of certain portion of the food items, irregular intake of meal, parental education, parenting pattern (attention/affection paid to a child), health and hygienic conditions bring changes in the magnitude of growth and development (Bielicki and Welon,1982).

The major stages of growth are prenatal (before birth) and postnatal (after birth). The former deals with growth from the moment of fertilization to development of embryo; whereas the later is considered separately for infancy, childhood and adolescence. Growth during the first year of the birth is characterized by rapid increase in overal body size and biological system, which is referred as growth at infancy. From infancy through puberty it is

characterized by slow but constant rate of growth, marked as growth at childhood to adolescence (to grow to maturity). According to Comas (1960), it is a transitional period of childhood to adulthood. Adolescence has a special significance in the study of human growth because of various changes in sexual and morphological characters that define the future adult bio-type (Kavitha, 2003). During the period of adolescence, males and females show differential growth pattern. Boys are little stronger than girls before adolescence; and lower sex dimorphism as evident from longitudinal study might be related to pre-pubertal conditions (Zaccagni and Gualdi-Russo, 2001). After adolescence, males are much stronger by virtue of stronger muscular development than females. Adolescent growth period is marked by a growth spurt, which has a

., distinct feature from general growth behavior. This is due to significantly more growth during a relatively limited period of time followed by a decreasing growth or return to the previous pattern. Therefore, adolescence spurt is marked with acceleration of growth (Tanner 1962), which occur in all children but with variable intensity. It is observed that the boys between 14 and15 years and girls between 12 and13 years (European data) tend to show adolescence spurt. A considerab ly greater adolescence spurt occurs in males than in females (Tanner, 1962), though there may be 'catch up' growth due to il ness or starvation.

Growth studies are of two types. They are longitudinal and cross sectional. In the longitudinal, every subject is measured at regular intervals, whereas in cross sectional, several children of different age groups are

measured at a time. The longitudinal studies provide vital information in the increment of growth in an individual bearing ethnicity, socio-cultural background and other relevant factors as constant, thereby facilitate to construct both distance as wel as velocity curves. However, such studies in practice are laborious , time consuming, require huge financial grants and demand great perseverance on the part of investigator and subject. Boas (1932) was the first to insist on longitudinal studies to bring out individual variation and more accurate knowledge of human growth. Several workers have emphasized the same opinion (Tanner,1962) .

In contrast, the cross sectional studies are easy to conduct, obviously cheaper and more quickly done. They also provide ample scope to include large number of individuals in different age groups. However, they provide the differential growth trend from one age group to other ignoring the essential constant. As a result, such data are helpful to construct only distance curves. In view of the pros and cons of both methods cross sectional studies are frequently preferred to assess nutritional status and growth process of children.

Health

The issue of health is of great importance both from the point of view of the individuals and the nation as well. In any country, it is the health status of the people that determines the pace of econo111ic development and the well-being of the people. Health is an important problem both in the advanced and developing countries. However, it is a serious problem in the developing countries. Health status of the people determines the average expectation of

life, number of people in productive age bracket, production, productivity, earning capacity, employment and welfare of the people .

The concept of the health, as defined by the World Health Organization is the state of complete physical, social and mental well-being and not merely absence of disease or infirmity. Nutrition and health are not synonymous but without good nutrition, health cannot be at it's best. Children of any country are its capital investment; the care shown towards them wil yield far great dividends in future. Nothing is costlier to the nation than to allow a child to be exposed to the risk of impairment, let it escalate into an irreversible disability and look for resources for rehabilitation that can never be complete.

Malnutrition

Malnutrition is

an undesirable kind of nutrition leading to ill health. It results from a lack, excess, imbalance and/or specific deficiencyof nutrients in the diet. It includes both undernutrition and overnutrition. Undernutrition