Unraveling the South Asian enigma: concurrent manifestations of child anthropometric failures and their determinants in selected South Asian countries

BMC Nutrition

Research

Sofia Anwar¹  Sabeen Saif¹ 

[1] Department of Economics, Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan;

关键词: CIAF;    Air pollution;    Mothers’ education;    Malnutrition;    Cointegration;    South Asia, anthropometric failure;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s40795-023-00771-4

 received in 2022-08-16, accepted in 2023-09-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

Malnutrition among children is pervasive in South Asia and there are also reports of overnutrition. To better understand this phenomenon, we need a composite measure. However, the existing measures such as CIAF (Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure) and its revised version have ignored the overnutrition aspect of the phenomenon. This study proposes an extended version of CIAF which also considers overnutrition. This new measure was compared with the existing measures by using data from 1990 to 2018 for three selected South Asian countries including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. We also examined the effects of socioeconomic and environmental variables on the outcome variable. The results reveal that the new measure (ECIAF) is better at measuring the phenomena. The burden of overall malnutrition has been decreased in the region. However, an increase in the concomitant prevalence of wasting and underweight is observed in both Pakistan and India and stunting and overweight is observed only in India. Besides, political stability, prevalence of undernourishment, anemia in children, mother’s education, household size, dependency ratio, air pollution and unimproved sanitation are significantly correlated with childhood malnutrition. The findings also testified to long-run cointegrating relationship among the variables.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】

Fig. 2