During adolescence, various factors such as rapid growth of the body and iron depletion due to menstrual bleeding or other causes increase the iron requirement. For instance, Bothwell and Finch
1) indicated that the average daily iron requirement is 1.0mg for adolescent males compared to 0.6mg for adult males, and 1.5mg for .adolescent females compared to 1.2mg for adult females. Therefore, if males or females in adolescence do not have adequate diets to support positive iron balance as aforementioned, they might easily develop iron deficiency anemia. Although various problems concerning iron deficiency anemia in late adolescence have been reported by several investigators,
1-4) few papers have been published concerning iron deficiency anemia in early adolescence. Therefore, various findings covering iron deficiency anemia in a group of high school students in Japan are presented in this paper.
View full abstract