Quality of Life of Parents - Impact on Health Status of Children

This study focuses on the influence of quality of life of parents on the health status of children (BMI). Thirty fathers were randomly selected and the quality of life scoring scale of Falgngan modified by Buchardt of 1993 was used. The impact of parents socio-economic profile on BMI of their children was studied in a subsample of 15 fathers and their children. Selected children are in 7th, 8th and 9th grades, in the age group of 12 years to 14 years. All of them are merit students from reputed schools of Andhra Pradesh (Tirupathi), Tamilnadu (Madurai and Chennai) and Telangana (Hyderabad). Parents of the children are qualified (degree to professional level) Six of15 mothers are housewives; other nine are doctors, lecturers into business. Among fathers there are doctors, engineers, software professionals and business people. . None of the children are obese or overweight. Forty percent of children are underweight (six), among them two are severely undernourished as assessed by Body mass index. Remaining sixty percent are just above the normal weight. With respect to height, one boy has height for age at 100 percent and nine of the children are above 70 percent of normal height for age. This may be partly genetic and partly nutritional. With regard to quality of life score among fathers, average maximum score obtained was 97.09 as against the maximum score of 112. The inference is that all fathers are concerned about the education of their child and their performance in various co-curricular and skill development activities. Although many fathers have indicated that health is important, in reality the concentration seems to be not on nutrition but only on absence of a disease. In spite of being highly educated and belonging to High income group, their knowledge/ concentration on nutritional aspects is lacking as is depicted in the childs nutritional profile.