Biomedical Research

Anemia among adolescent girls is remaining a public health problem in Indonesia. This study was aimed to assess the association of balanced diet behavior and microcytic-hypochromic anemia among adolescent girls. A cross-sectional study has been conducted among 200 adolescent girls in five senior high schools in Maros regency on March to April 2015. Assessment of anemia was performed by Flow Cytometry and SLS-hemoglobin method, data of balanced diet behavior was collected using structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed by using chi- square test with SPSS software for windows. The prevalence of microcytic-hypochromic anemia was 19.5%. There were 41% subjects had low knowledge about balanced diet, more than a half (55.5%) had negative attitude to balanced diet, and 46.5% had a poor practice of balance diet. Knowledge and attitude about balanced diet had no association with microcytic- hypochromic anemia. In contrast, the practices of balanced diet had a significant association with microcytic-hypochromic anemia (p=0.048). It is suggested to conduct an intervention for balanced diet education among adolescent schoolgirls to improve their balanced diet behavior

Author(s): Sitti Patimah, Ida Royani, Ansar Mursaha, Abdul Razak Thaha
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