ABSTRACT
Introduction and Aims: Children, with special dietary needs due to growth are significantly at risk for malnutrition. Malnutrition, particularly underweight malnutrition, is one of the nutritional problems in children. This study investigated the prevalence of children underweight 3- 6 years old in the villages of Neyshabur
Methods: This cross-sectional study was done in all 3-6 year- old children [1621 cases]in the rural kindergartens of Neyshabur in 1388. Collected data were analyzed by SPSS software ver. 16, used t-student, Chi-square and Kruskal-Wallis tests.
Results: This study showed that 576 cases [Prevalence=35.5%] of 1621 children under observation were suffering from underweight, of this number, 330 cases [Prevalence=39%] were boys and 246 cases [Prevalence=31.7%] were girls.This difference was statistically significant [P=0.002]. 77.2% of children had mild malnutrition, 20.7% had moderate malnutrition and 2.1% had severe malnutrition.The highest prevalence of underweight was observed in 6- year- old children
Conclusion: According to the results of this study, the prevalence of underweight in children studied in rural areas, especially in boys, is relatively high and appropriate training is essential to be given to parents in the field of proper nutrition in children
ABSTRACT
Food security is a state in which all people at every time have physical and economic access to adequate food to obviate nutritional needs and live a healthy and active life. Therefore, this study was performed to quantitatively evaluate the household food security in Esfahan using the localized version of US Household Food Security Survey Module [US HFSSM]. This descriptive cross-sectional study was performed in year 2006 on 3000 households of Esfahan. The study instrument used in this work is 18-item US food security module, which is developed into a localized 15-item questionnaire. This study is performed in two stages of families with no children [under 18 years old] and families with children over 18 years old. The results showed that item severity coefficient, ratio of responses given by households and item infit and outfit coefficient in adult's and children's questionnaire respectively. According to obtained data, scale score of +3 in adults group is described as determination limit of slight food insecurity and +6 is stated as the limit for severe food insecurity. For children's group, scale score of +2 is defined to be the limit of slight food insecurity and +5 is the determination limit of severe food insecurity. The main hypothesis of this survey analysis is based on the raw scale score of USFSSM The item of "lack of enough money for buying food" [item 2] and the item of "lack of balanced meal" [3[rd] item] have the lowest severity coefficient. Then, the ascending rate of item severity continues in first item, 4[th] item and keeps increasing into 10[th] item