The nutritional status of children in Bhutan: results from the 2008 National nutrition survey and trends over time

BMC Pediatrics

Research Article

Mercedes de Onis¹  Ugyen Zangmo²  Tandin Dorji² 

[1] Department of Nutrition for Health and Development, World Health Organization, 20 Avenue Appia, 1211, Geneva 27, Switzerland;Department of Public Health, Ministry of Health, Thimphu, Bhutan;

关键词: Stunting;    Wasting;    Malnutrition;    Infant nutrition;    Child health;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2431-12-151

 received in 2012-07-05, accepted in 2012-09-18,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThere are few reports on the nutritional status of Bhutanese children. The objective of this paper is to summarize results from the 2008 National Nutrition Survey and to describe progress achieved during the last two decades.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of 2376 children aged 6 to 59 months was conducted during November-December 2008 to provide national and regional estimates. A multi-stage cluster sampling method was applied and 40 gewogs/thromdes were selected from each region (Western, Central, Eastern). Guidelines on how to measure length/height and weight followed WHO standardized procedures. Data were analysed for consistency and validation using the software WHO Anthro and the WHO SPSS macro. Underweight, stunting, overweight, wasting and thinness were defined based on the WHO Child Growth Standards. Data from 1986-88 and 1999 national surveys were reanalysed using the WHO standards to describe trends in nutritional status.ResultsNationally, 34.9% Bhutanese preschool children are stunted and 10.4% are underweight. Wasting is 4.7%, with severe wasting close to 2% in rural areas, while overweight affects 4.4% of preschool children. While underweight rates are similar across regions, wasting is substantially more prevalent in the Western region and stunting in the Eastern region. Stunting shows a steep rise during the first two years of life, as high as 40%, and levels off thereafter, while wasting is greatest among children aged 6-24 months and subsequently decreases. The prevalence of stunting fell from 60.9% in 1986-88 to 34.9% in 2008, and underweight declined from 34.0% to 10.4% during same period. The percentage of wasted children dropped from 5.2% in 1986-88 to 2.5% in 1999 but then increased to 4.7% in 2008.ConclusionsThere have been major improvements in the nutritional status of Bhutanese children over the past two decades, however, linear growth retardation remains a significant concern. Early identification of growth faltering is essential for improving the effectiveness of public health programs to prevent stunting. Similarly, wasting rates indicate the need for a system to identify children with severe malnutrition in the isolated communities so that they can receive appropriate care.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Zangmo et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.