The first detailed study on adolescent health around the world revealed a rise in inequalities in health and other social indicators. For example, a quarter of the world's adolescents were found to have anemia.

The study, published recently in the medical journal Lancet, found that investments in health, education and legal systems are not keeping pace with the needs of population growth.

Teenagers aged 10 to 24 are the largest generation in human history, with 1.8 billion people, or one-third of the world's population.

In 2016, one in five adolescents (324 million people) was overweight or obese, an increase of 125 percent since 1990, and Pacific countries had the highest prevalence of obesity, according to the study.

More than half of all adolescents worldwide - according to the global study - now live in low-income or middle-income countries and account for two-thirds of the burden of disease among people in this age group.

One in four adolescents (430 million) had anemia in 2016, an increase of more than 20 percent since 1990 and slightly less than half the total number of adolescents with anemia (194). Million people) in India and China.

India
The study found that the rate of anemia in India (54%) is almost double the global average.

The Murdoch Institute for Children's Research, based in Australia, the University of Melbourne and the Burnett Institute, led the study, which provides the first comprehensive and comprehensive picture of adolescent health, tracking progress in 195 countries between 1990 and 2016.

The study included 12 indicators, including tobacco smoking, obesity, anemia, education, child marriage, nutrition and non-communicable diseases.

Although the prevalence of tobacco smoking among adolescents has declined in general, there were 136 million adolescents who smoked daily in 2016, according to the study.

Ukraine and Greenland recorded the highest rates of tobacco smoking among males, with 30.1 and 31.6%, respectively, and the proportion of girls in Greenland was 32.7%.

Seventy-one million adolescents said they were drinking wine in 2016, slightly higher than in 1990. Denmark, Finland and Ireland topped the list, with nearly two-thirds of teenagers and teenagers drinking alcohol.

According to the study, there are 250 million new adolescents since 1990, but young people are currently facing much more health challenges than they did at the time.

The study reveals the failure of health, education and law systems to cope with the changing needs of adolescents and demographic change, said lead researcher Peter Azubardi.

Although there had been a significant improvement in adolescent health in some countries, the highest population growth rates had occurred in countries where adolescents had the greatest burden of disease.

The study also found that an estimated 66 million girls were married in the UN-defined childhood phase before the age of 18. Fifty percent of those who had married before that age were in Niger, Chad, Central Africa and Bangladesh.

marriage
40% of girls in countries with the worst health care rates were married before the age of 18.

The study's supervisor, George Patton, says adolescent health is underfunded or neglected by many governments.

He added that the means of communication and digital media - in addition to changing diets, urbanization, armed conflict and migration - are among the forces that currently constitute the pattern of growth and development of adolescent health at a time when the world is not.