Evaluation of the nutritional status of rural children living in Zambia
- PDF / 1,260,985 Bytes
- 11 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 81 Downloads / 167 Views
(2020) 39:34
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Open Access
Evaluation of the nutritional status of rural children living in Zambia Arimi Mitsunaga1 and Taro Yamauchi2*
Abstract Background: Growth references (growth charts) are used to assess the nutritional and growth status of children. In developed countries, there are growth charts based on the country’s national surveys. However, many developing countries do not have their own growth references, so they usually use WHO and US CDC references. In such cases, it is known that the growth statuses of the subject are underestimated or overestimated. This study sought to accurately assess the growth status of children by developing a local growth chart for children living in the Southern Province of Zambia. Methods: Anthropometric measurements were conducted on 1135 children aged 2–19 years in the target area. The height and weight data for each sex and age were smoothed using the LMS method, and a percentile curve of height and weight was developed. Based on the US CDC reference, three indicators of undernutrition (stunting, underweight, and thinness) were calculated to determine the proportion of those who are undernourished (z-score < − 2). Results: The 50th percentile curve of height and weight in the growth chart of the target population was equivalent to the 5–25th percentile curve of the US reference, and the children of Zambia were both small and of low weight. Conversely, although many subjects are small and of low weight, it was found that there were few poor nutritional statuses as judged by BMI. Through comparison with a previous study in the Southern Province of Zambia, a secular change in the growth of children over 20 years was found. Although there was no significant increase in height and weight in the older age group, there was a significant increase in height and weight at an earlier age. This is thought to be due to an increase in the growth rate of children due to improved socioeconomic conditions, women’s education level, and improvement in health care standards. Conclusions: The subjects were small and of low weight compared to the US population, but the nutritional status was not poor by BMI. The height and weight at an earlier age increased compared to 20 years ago. Keywords: Zambia, Secular trend, Growth chart, Nutritional status
Background Child growth is internationally recognized as an important indicator for monitoring nutritional status and health in populations [1]. Poor circumstances in early childhood are associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases and their underlying risk factors, which affect life-long health [2, 3]. * Correspondence: [email protected] 2 Faculty of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, N12-W5, Kitaku, Sapporo 060-0812, Japan Full list of author information is available at the end of the article
Undernutrition in developing countries has been an internationally important issue, as exemplified by the launch of the Scaling up Nutrition (SUN). In particular, previous research [4] described that sub-Saharan Africa
Data Loading...
