Hyderabad: Malnutrition among government school students has largely been overlooked as health check-ups are not conducted regularly nor are health records of the students maintained properly by concerned authorities.
School education department officials said that they did not have any consolidated data with regard to health check-ups conducted in schools to know the health status of children.
A joint review mission of government schools in Hyderabad by a two-member MHRD committee in 2015 had reported that health records were being poorly maintained in government schools.
While height and weight of school students are recorded during health camps whenever they are conducted, there has never been any effort to calculate and record the body mass index (BMI) of students, which can be an indicator of their nutritional status.
Health check-ups in government schools are carried out by nurses from primary health centres and not by doctors. Check-ups by specialists like ophthalmologists, ENT specialists or dentists are also not conducted in government schools.
The MHRD committee had also found that micronutrients were not given to the children on a regular basis and that school officials were not measuring individual food intake of students as prescribed by mid-day meal scheme.
