Prevalence of thinness in children and adolescents in the Seychelles: comparison of two international growth references

Nutrition Journal

Research

Nathalie Kizirian¹  Pascal Bovet² 

[1] Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP, University Hospital Centre and University of Lausanne, rue de la Corniche 2, 1066 Epalinges, Switzerland;Section of Noncommunicable Diseases, Ministry of Health, Republic of Seychelles, Victoria;Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (IUMSP, University Hospital Centre and University of Lausanne, rue de la Corniche 2, 1066 Epalinges, Switzerland;

关键词: Body Mass Index;    World Health Organization;    Standard Deviation;    African Region;    International Survey;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1475-2891-10-65

 received in 2010-12-06, accepted in 2011-06-09,  发布年份 2011

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundThinness in children and adolescents is largely under studied, a contrast with abundant literature on under-nutrition in infants and on overweight in children and adolescents. The aim of this study is to compare the prevalence of thinness using two recently developed growth references, among children and adolescents living in the Seychelles, an economically rapidly developing country in the African region.MethodsWeight and height were measured every year in all children of 4 grades (age range: 5 to 16 years) of all schools in the Seychelles as part of a routine school-based surveillance program. In this study we used data collected in 16,672 boys and 16,668 girls examined from 1998 to 2004. Thinness was estimated according to two growth references: i) an international survey (IS), defining three grades of thinness corresponding to a BMI of 18.5, 17.0 and 16.0 kg/m2 at age 18 and ii) the WHO reference, defined here as three categories of thinness (-1, -2 and -3 SD of BMI for age) with the second and third named "thinness" and "severe thinness", respectively.ResultsThe prevalence of thinness was 21.4%, 6.4% and 2.0% based on the three IS cut-offs and 27.7%, 6.7% and 1.2% based on the WHO cut-offs. The prevalence of thinness categories tended to decrease according to age for both sexes for the IS reference and among girls for the WHO reference.ConclusionThe prevalence of the first category of thinness was larger with the WHO cut-offs than with the IS cut-offs while the prevalence of thinness of "grade 2" and thinness of "grade 3" (IS cut-offs) was similar to the prevalence of "thinness" and "severe thinness" (WHO cut-offs), respectively.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Bovet et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2011