Pediatric Education and Research

 Tuberculosis (TB) is still responsible for 2 million deaths every year despite being a treatable airborne infectious disease. “Consumption” and “Phthisis” were terms historically used to describe TB, which was responsible for one in four deaths in the 19th century. Due to its infectious nature, chronic progression and long treatment, TB is a great burden for society. Moreover the emergence of multi-drug resistant TB and the current TB-HIV epidemic has raised even greater concern. Treating and preventing TB has become a permanent challange since the ancient times. Bacille Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is the only vaccine available today and has been used for more than 90 years with astonishing safety records. However, its efficacy remains controversial. No universal BCG vaccination policy exists, with some countries merely recommending its use and others that have implemented immunization programs. 

 ‘Eat healthy and live healthy’ is one of the essential requirements for long life. Childhood obesity is a serious epidemic, affecting children across the world. In our country alone, 17% of all children and adolescents are now obese, triple the rate from just a generation ago (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2011). Fast food consumption is one potential cause that has received widespread attention. Many researchers have looked at the relationship between fast food and childhood obesity from various angles. Some of these include the influence of family, the media, and the proximity of fast food restaurants to schools and homes. Examining the interrelationships of these angles can lead to a better understanding of the relationship between childhood obesity and fast food, and from this multi-angle viewpoint, we can see that no single aspect is solely to blame. Diseases like coronary artery disease and diabetes mellitus have seen a profound rise in developing countries and such unhealthy junk food consumption is one of the notable factors to its contribution. This global problem of consuming junk food on a large scale and its impact on health needs emphasis and health education which can greatly contribute to its limited consumption and switching over to healthy eating habits for the better living. Aim: To examine the inter-relationship between childhood obesity and fast food & assess the various factor affecting childhood obesity. Objectives: To Examine relationship between childhood obesity and fast food. Materials & Methods: children in various 8 community health centres .Inclusion criteria: Children from 2- 12 years of age. Exclusion criteria: Children with obese parents: “Constitutional obesity”Children with chronic systemic diseases. Result: the characteristics of the 312, Marathis, jains, Bengalis, and Sikhs children whose parents completed the survey. half the children were female. Children ranged from 2 to 12 years of age, 58% were younger than 7. Approximately 2/ 3rd of the children were Gujaratis, Marathis constituted the next largest group (17%). Parents’ education ranged from second grade to a professional school degree, and  (68%) had completed a high school degree (41.7%) or less (26%). Household income ranged from 10,000 - 75,000 per year, and most parents (70%) were in the category of less than 30,000 per year. Income and education differed across ethnicity: Sikhs had significantly lower levels of education than all other participants, and Gujaratis had the highest. Furthermore, Sikhs had the lowest income level, and Gujaratis had the highest.As we expected a high proportion of the children were overweight (23%) or at risk of becoming overweight (14%), which is higher than would be expected for children in this age range. In terms of overweight status across the various ethnic groups, 33% of the Gujarati children, 25% of the children identified as mixed, 18.5% of the Marathi, 18.4% of the child bengali, and 15.4% of the sikh children were overweight. Conclusion: the results of this study show that fast-food influences parents’ behavior with respect to feeding their children. Thus, for a more comprehensive understanding of approaches to reduce childhood obesity and related cardiovascular risk factors, research that assesses the influence of Fast food on children’s eating behaviors and policy debates about food marketing to children should consider parents’s exposure.

 Introduction: Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. 1Overweight and obesity among the adolescents is in the rising trend that often begins in childhood. Materials and Methods: cross-sectional study carried out over a period of six months, from November 2013 march 2014. 240 adolescents, 16 to 18 years of age, of raichur city, Karnataka, India were included as subject in the study. Results: A total of 240 adolescents in the age group of 12 to 18 years were analyzed. Out of these 132 (55%) subjects were males. The mean BMI of the sample was 21.04 ± 2.07 kg/m2 among boys and 23.25 ± 1.91 kg/m2 among girls. The prevalence of overweight among adolescents was 13.18% (5.31% among boys and 15.74% among girls) and obesity was overall 1%. Conclusion: With this study we would like to place a take home message that the over weight and obesity is highly prevalent among adolescents. The onset of the same is noted as early as in childhood. The late adolescent is the best time for the primary prevention. 

 Aims and Objectives: To study the etiology and clinico-haematological co-relation of anemia in Pediatric age group. Methodology: Cross Sectional analyticalstudy done on children between 6 months to 15 years admitted in Pediatric ward whose hemoglobin levels were below the WHO cut off for age from 1st August 2013 TO 31st July 2015. Results: We studied 557 anemic children admitted in pediatric ward aged 6 months to 15 years. Out of 557 subject 332 were males and 225 females. Maximum number of children (52.5%) were present in the preschool age group followed by school going (31.4%) and adolescent (16.3%). Amongst preschool (63.2%) and school going (60.6%) children, male were more in number whereas females were more in adolescents (53.8%). Easy fatigability (26%), irritability (25%), Lack of concentration (17.6%) and breathlessness (16%) were the few common clinical symptoms. Children with moderate anemia were more symptomatic.Palmar pallor (81.5%), Icterus (13.2%), knuckle pigmentation (12.2%) were few common clinical signs observed. Clinical signs were more common in patients with moderate anemia. Nutritional anemia (59.6%) and hemolytic anemias and haemoglobinopathies (32.7%) wwere the commonest etiological types and Iron deficiency anemia (88.5%) was the commones cause of nutritional anemia. Out of 557 children 56.2% were moderately anemic followed by 25.8% who were severly anemic. Palmar pallor was found to be 81.5% sensitive and conjunctival pallor was 89.9% sensitive. Palmar pallor was most sensitive for severe anemia (98.6%) followed by moderate (80.2%) anemia. Conclusion: Nutritional anemia was the commonest etiological type of anemia, with Iron deficiency being the most frequently observed sub type, followed by hemoglobinopathies and hemoatological anemia, which was mainly constituted by sickle cell anemia and thalassemia. Clinical features like easy fatigability, irritability, lack of concentration, breathlessness, headache and palpitations were frequently observed in children with moderate anemia, where as children with mild anemia were relatively symptom free. Palmar pallor was found to be 81.5% sensitive and conjunctival pallor was 89.9% sensitive, sensitivity was in more in severe forms of anemia hence we conclude that palmar pallor and conjunctival pallor can be used as a simple diagnostic tool for moderate and severe form of anemias, and reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with anemia.