I am working on some topics related to nutritional status in children and poverty, but I cannot understand the ideas of " stunting, overweight" etc. Would anybody like to explain and provide the standard formulas to calculate them?
Better use Cole et. cut- offs value. plz...see Cole et al. 2000 and 2007
The reference that Eliz suggested will be useful for sure. If you go to the WHO website you can search WHO anthro and this is software that you can use to calculate z scores used to determine the different forms of malnutrition.
The fact is that poor nutrition affects child growth and that chronic malnutrition can lead to retarded linear growth leading to infants and young children being of shorter stature than standard expectations. This is stunting! However the stunting does not only affect linear growth but also development in general including brain and cognitive develoment with long term effects on educational outcomes. The link between educational outcomes and malnutrition in developing countires makes poverty difficult to combat with further impact on economic development. Besides being caused by chronic malnutrition stunting can also be caused by what is termed hidden hunger which refers to micronutrient deficiencies resulting from low nutrient density diets. This is why there is so much emphasis on micronutrients currently in nutrition globally.
Overweight on the other hand is usually as a result of dietary energy intake in excess of requirments leading to a Body mass index higher than 25Kg/m2 for children older than 9 years and adults. This situation can further lead to obesity. For infants and young children up to 9 years Weigh-for-height z scores above +2 SD. This puts the child at risk of developing noncommunicable diseases like diabetes and others and puts the child at risk of the same later in adulthood also with impact on health.
I hope this quick summary will help you.
Stunting is a chronic malnutrition, means a low weight for height.
Overweight is a high weight for height, but sometimes because of high adiposity and sometimes because of a great muscle mass
These clasification can be obtained by international growth standards or local growth patterns, but there are differences
A think that the following reference can help you to understand how and which curve is more appropriate to be used to assess stunting and obesity in children. "Commentary: measuring nutritional status of children" (http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/4/1030.extract).
I think anthropometrics and BMI formula might assist you. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) emphasized that obesity which is amongst the NCDs, is becoming a major health problem in many developing countries, particularly in adult females. Obesity is associated with an increased risk of hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and certain cancers. The causes include changes in eating patterns, increased urbanization, cheapness and availability of fast foods, passive entertainment, and a decrease in physical activity.
On the other hand, under nutrition results from a deficiency of carbohydrate, protein, fat, vitamins, minerals and trace elements (Plessis (no date) in the diet. More specifically Protein-energy malnutrition may occur as well as micronutrient malnutrition. Addressing under nutrition SA Nutritional Literature Review (no date: 3) states that it requires action across the broad, as it is not just the result of lack of food or ill health but there are many inter-related causes.
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