The present study was carried out on 571 Ao Naga children including 289 boys and 282 girls aged 8 to 15 years from Mokokchung town, Nagaland. This study tried to find out the physical growth according to the height and weight and nutritional status according to the body mass index (BMI) following the classification by Cole et al. Our study revealed that the girls were taller than boys till 13 years and the boys became taller thereafter. As for weight, the girls were heavier during 10 to 14 years. The mean height and weight increased as the age advanced in both boys and girls. The prevalence of underweight was 30.12% and the prevalence of overweight was 2.28% among the Ao Naga children, and the girls were found to have a higher prevalence of overweight and the boys had a higher prevalence of underweight. This revealed that both underweight and overweight coexisted among the Ao Naga children from Mokokchung town, although the prevalence of overweight was not high. 1. Introduction Physical growth of children is widely recognized as one of the most sensitive and reliable indicator of health and nutritional status in the human population [1]. Growth and maturation are maintained by the interactions of genes, hormones, and nutrients [2], and it provides an indirect measurement of the quality of life of an entire population [3]. Nutrition is the process by which living organisms receive and utilize the material necessary for the maintenance of their function as well as renewal of their function [4]. The assessment of the nutritional status of children is useful for understanding not only the health status of a community but also for the national and regional policy planning [5]. Childhood and adolescence are stages of great interest in the study of diet and assessment of nutrition, because it is a period during which the dietary habits of the future adult are consolidated [6, 7]. One of the major health problems in many developing countries is malnutrition (undernutrition and overnutrition) which creates a lasting effect on the growth, development, and physical fitness of a person. Undernutrition is difficult to quantify, but its presence is ordinarily established in public health and clinical contexts with the use of anthropometry, specifically weight and height. Undernutrition during infancy and early childhood receives most emphasis because of its association with morbidity and mortality early in life and its long-term consequences; however, undernutrition can occur at any time during the life cycle [8]. Furthermore, the terms overweight and obesity, on the
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