A Study on, Iron Nutritional Status and Anemia of Middle School Girls in Ulsan Metropolitan City

This study was designed to assess the iron nutritional status and anemia of middle school girls in Ulsan City, who were evaluated with a questionnaire, measurement of hematological indices. The average height and weight of respondents were 154.81$\pm$6.28cm and 48.51$\pm$8.80kg, respectively. Mean daily energy intake was 1815.72$\pm$328.04kcal and iron intake was 15.13$\pm$4.50mg. The average hemoglobin concentration of subjects was 11.98$\pm$0.78g/dl, and the average hematocrit level was 36.62$\pm$2.21%. Transferrin saturationTS (%) was 25.58$\pm$9.82%, and the ferritin level was 40.45$\pm$23.03ng/ml. Iron deficiency anemia among the subjects was estimated as 54.2% by using hemoglobin(<12g/이), 33.9% by hematocrit (<36%). The clinical symptoms relating anemia were measured with 4 Likert scale (1 : never, 4 : often), 'tired out easily (2.34$\pm$0.92)' was the highest, followed by 'feel dizzy always (2.26$\pm$0.85)', 'decreasing ability to concentrate (2.23$\pm$0.77)', 'get a cold easily (2.19$\pm$0.82)', 'have a headache (2.10$\pm$0.79)', 'poor memory (2.09$\pm$0.83)', 'no appetite (1.99$\pm$0.85)', As for the correlation between iron parameter and clinical symptoms related to anemia, the hematocrit rate was negatively correlated with 'get a cold easily', 'pale face', 'feeling blue', 'difficult digestion' (p<0.05). The level of iron was negatively correlated with 'tired out easily', 'get a cold easily' (p<0.05) and TS (%) were negatively correlated with 'tired out easily (p<0.05)', 'get a cold easily (p<0.01). Our study resulted that the prevalence of a iron deficiency of a middle school girl is very high, therefore the guidelines for iron supplementation and nutritional education to improve their iron status should be provided.