{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,17]],"date-time":"2026-02-17T11:09:54Z","timestamp":1771326594162,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":53,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,12]],"date-time":"2023-07-12T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1689120000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Nutr."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>For school-age children, a healthy transition from childhood to adolescence and adulthood depends on proper nutrition. Globally, most nutritional surveys focus on preschool and adolescents, neglecting school-age children. Recent studies have shown the prevalence of thinness among adolescents to be 26.5% in Karnataka. Similarly, among children aged &amp;lt; 5 years in the Raichur district, the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and being underweight was 39.8, 23.2, and 40.7%, respectively. The present study aimed to bridge the data gap between &amp;lt; 5 years of children and adolescents through a nutritional survey of school-going children in Raichur, one of the aspirational districts of India.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Materials and methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>A cross-sectional survey was conducted from January to March 2020 among rural school-age children (<jats:italic>n<\/jats:italic> = 2700) in 30 villages of the Raichur district of Karnataka, India. The school children were selected through a multi-stage cluster sampling technique. The WHO Anthro-plus software was used for calculating the age and sex-specific Z-scores for weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ), and BMI-for-age (BAZ).<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>Of the 2,700 school-age children surveyed, the mean weight and height were 22.2 kg (<jats:underline>+<\/jats:underline>5.8) and 124.9 cm (<jats:underline>+<\/jats:underline>11.6), respectively. The prevalence of children having weight-for-age Z-scores &amp;lt; \u22122 SD (Underweight) was 45.3% (95% CI: 42.7%\u221247.8%). The magnitude of stunting and severe stunting was 19.5% (95% CI: 18.0%\u221221.0%) and 7.6% (95% CI: 6.6%\u22128.6%), respectively. The proportion of children with BMI for age Z-scores &amp;lt; \u22122SD (thinness) was 43% (95% CI: 41.1%\u221244.9%), with sub-district Sindhanur having a dual burden of malnutrition.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>Despite many flagship programs, the prevalence of undernutrition in school-age children remains a considerable public health problem in the aspirational district of Raichur, India. Furthermore, exploratory studies are recommended to identify the factors associated with undernutrition among school-age children and strategize evidence-based intervention.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fnut.2023.1209949","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,12]],"date-time":"2023-07-12T13:09:11Z","timestamp":1689167351000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":9,"title":["Undernutrition among rural school-age children: a major public health challenge for an aspirational district in Karnataka, India"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"10","author":[{"given":"Phaniraj","family":"Vastrad","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sushrit","family":"Neelopant","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"U. 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