General Knowledge

RESEARCH ACTIVITY IN KARENNI

25th September 2022

Demoso Township is situated in Loikaw District, Karenni or Kayah State. There was a lovely memory in Demoso Township. I would like to say “thank you to all who contributed to the lovely memory”.

What make lovely memory in Demoso?

Children are future leaders or valuable resources of our country. The growing and developing period of school-age is very important for them. They undergo physical, mental, emotional and social or psychological changes in this period which is also dynamic period of their growth and development. There is a need to assess whether children have proper growth and development and to make sure that they have a healthy lifestyle.

In children, parameters used to measure growth are height, weight and Body Mass Index (BMI). Growth data are also important indicators of general health and well-being. Therefore, the three growth parameters among the students in the Basic Education High School (Branch), Daw Ta Ma Nge, Demoso Township were analyzed in 2019.

Study Site

Basic Education High School (Branch) of Daw Ta Ma Nge in Demoso Township, Karenni or Kayah State (Plate 1)

Sample Students

A total sample of 129 students aged six to ten years including 79 boys and 50 girls (Plate 2)

Study Period

January 2019 – July 2019

Study Design

Data collection was based on the date of birth, sex, height and weight measurements. Samples were grouped according to the age (Plate 3).

Plate 3 Data collection based on the date of birth and sex

Measurements were taken by using the centrimetric measuring tape for height and the Mechanical Personal Scale (Model: BR 3010) for weight and recorded by the metric scale (Plate 4 and 5).

Body Mass Index (BMI) was calculated using the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s BMI calculator available from the website http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov and recorded for each sample group. BMI was calculated using the formula: weight (kg) / [height (m) x height (m)] for all samples, who then were classified as underweight, healthy weight, overweight, or obese according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) cut-off points based on the charts (Plate 6 A and B) of Body Mass Index-for-age percentiles available from the website http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts. The CDC system defines underweight as a BMI less than the 5th percentile of the reference population, healthy weight as a BMI the 5th percentile to the 84th percentile, overweight as a BMI the 85th percentile to the 94th percentile, and obesity as a BMI the 95th percentile to above the 95th percentile.

(Source: http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts)

(A) Chart for boys aged 2 to 20 years

(Source: http://www.cdc.gov/growthcharts)

(B) Chart for girls aged 2 to 20 years Plate 6 Charts of Body Mass Index-for-age percentiles

Results and Discussion

Table 1 Growth parameters of students according to age and sex

According to the results presented in Table 1, the mean values for the body height and body weight increased with the age among the boys as well as the girls.

The mean values for BMI were not increased with the age among the boys and girls. The ten years old group showed the highest mean value of BMI for the boys (15.39 ± 1.38 kg/m2) as well as for the girls (15.07 ± 1.37 kg/m2). The seven years old group showed the lowest mean value of BMI for the boys (14.25 ± 1.00 kg/m2) as well as for the girls (14.27 ± 1.51 kg/m2). These results indicated the good growth data in the ten years old group and the poor growth data in the seven years old group for both the boys and girls because the Body Mass Index (BMI) is a growth indicator for defining the nutritional status of a child and showing the general health and well-being.

Table 2 Growth parameters of students according to sex

According to the results presented in Table 2, there were numerically higher mean values of three growth parameters for the girls in comparison to the boys.

The girls had numerically higher values for the body height (1.20 m > 1.19 m) and body weight (21.34 kg > 21.02 kg) than the boys. It was found that the gender differences with regard to the body height and weight may be attributed to the dietary pattern during the period of growth and development. The girls with the higher mean values of body height and weight had a higher mean Body Mass Index (BMI) than the boys (14.76 kg/m2 > 14.66 kg/m2). These findings suggested that the gender difference in the mean BMI was according to the gender differences with respect to the mean body height and body weight.

The students were classified as healthy weight, underweight, overweight or obese according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) cut-off points (Table 3).

Table 3 BMI classified groups among the students

Based on the results presented in Table 3, 71.32% of the students had a BMI in the healthy weight and there was more prevalence in the boys (72.15% of the boys) than in the girls (70% of the girls). It was found that the BMI in the normal or healthy weight reflects the gender discrimination in providing the nutrition in terms of food.

The BMI in the underweight (25.58% of the total students) indicated that there is a need to assess the dietary pattern of local people and give information how to take their balanced diet with the high nutritional value.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks are due to Daw Naw Hae Ri Oo, Headmistress of the Basic Education High School (Branch) of Daw Ta Ma Nge in Demoso Township for her help to take the necessary growth measurements of the students. It is a pleasure for me to thank Daw Mya Than Htay, Daw Nant Cho Cho Htay, U Lin Lin Htet, Daw Naw Pan Do Ra and Daw Mai Hmun Nei Kim (lecturing staffs of Loikaw University) for their participation with great effort in this work.