Assessing the Nutritional Status of Palestinian Adolescents from East Jerusalem: a School-based Study 2002―03

In Palestine, there is a little information about nutrition of adolescents compared to other age groups. This study was designed to assess the nutritional status of Palestinian school-aged children (11-16 years) in East Jerusalem during 2002-03. A school-based cross-sectional study targeted randomly 313 adolescents from public and private schools. A previously validated and reliable questionnaire was administered through interviews that included anthropometric and hemoglobin measurements, 24-h dietary intake recall and physical activity questionnaire. It was found that being overweight (24.3%) or obese (9.9%) coexisted with being underweight (4.8%) and/or anemic (23.3%). Only 22.4% of the study subject had physical activity for ≥5 days a week with boys being more physically active than girls (p