Stressed out: Students take an examination. Telegraph picture

Patna, Feb. 13: The board examinations are near. The students are a tensed lot. And so are their parents.

Earlier, the parents would have been worried because the students were not preparing enough for their examinations. Now their worry is because their children are compromising on nutrition in their drive for good results.

Till a few days back, 16-year-old Manash was one such student.

Manash strongly felt studying throughout day and night was the way to achieve good results in the forthcoming board examinations. Egged on by this belief, Manash not only started to take back-to-back tuitions followed by long hours of study at home, he also compromised on his nutrition.

Skipping meals, preferring snacks to proper lunch and dinner became the norm for Manash. The result: now he is so stressed ahead of his board examinations that his parents are extremely worried about his health.

This is not just the story of Manash’s stress. He could be the face to every student in the state who is going through similar stress. Dieticians and psychologists in the city feel this is the situation faced by almost every teenager preparing for board examinations. Neha, an 18-year-old student of Krishna Niketan, said she is so tensed ahead of her examinations that she often skips her meals. “There is so much pressure on me to perform well in the my Class XII boards. I have lost my appetite and feel anxious all the time. My mother keeps on nagging me to have my food but I hardly feel like eating,” she said.

Neha’s mother, Priyanka Chaudhary, said she was very concerned about Neha’s health. She said: “Neha’s has lost a lot of weight over the past few months. I can see the signs of examination stress. I have made a diet routine for her and I am seeing to it that she sticks to it.”

Revati Verma, a dietician with a prominent city hospital, counselled Manash and made him focus on his nutritional needs. “In a desperate bid to do exceptionally well in the examinations, students tend to ignore their health. They do not just opt for more tuition classes but also increase their hours of study at home. What gets neglected in this ensuing chaos is food and nutrition. Nutrition should be given the utmost importance, especially in the examination season,” said Verma. She told Manash that he should focus on increasing his nutritional levels these days to be able to keep up with the increased level of activities, especially mental.

Counselled by Verma, Manash is now a changed boy.

Now, he takes frequent study breaks and makes it a point not to skip any of his meals. He has also doubled the intake of his favourite micronutrient fortified beverage.

“Both the mind and body are tested at the time of examinations. The entire body system of an individual has to endure a lot of stress during this time. You have to maintain your body’s internal strength to be able to take on the long hours necessary for a good result. It also helps one to be attentive and concentrate on studies,” said Dr Mazhar Hassan, a psychiatrist of Sharda Hospital.