Evaluation of nutritional status and some correlated factors of children under five in two villages in Tien Giang province

A cross sectional study was carried out on 866 children under 5 years old and all mothers with children under 2 years old in 2 villages of Cai Be district, Tien Giang province (one village often suffered by flooding and one village rarely had flooding). Household KAP interviews using structured questionnaire have been conducted. The weight and height of all children were measured. Results: In two villages, the percentage of malnourished children was still high (21.24%). Simultaneously, obesity in children under five (1.7%) emerged as a new health issue. All these risk factors: educational status of fathers and mothers, practice in feeding (giving the child fluid during 24 hours after birth, feeding during the child experienced diarrheae), starvation of families, knowledge on growth chart, time of first feeding the baby with supplementary food, time of weaning were investigated. There is no statistic significant association of those risk factors with nutritional status of children under five between the two villages

Evaluation of nutritional status and some related factors in children under 5 years old at 2 communes of Tien Giang province

Study on nutritional status of 866 children less than 5 years old who were living in 2 communes of Cai Be district, Tien Giang province. Results: prevalence of malnutrition in children <5 years old at 2 communes was 21.4%, in An Thai Dong commune was 21.2% and in My Trung commune was 21.4%. Malnutrition often was mild, 27.7% malnutrition children were between 12 and 24 months. However, there were overweight and obesity children. Most of mothers had knowledge of nutrition and nursing for their children. 79.69% mother knew that it’s necessary to give more fluid, 79.69% mother continued normal diet when their children suffered from diarrhea. There wasn’t any difference of nutritional status between a flooded commune and a normal commune. It wasn’t found the association of nutritional status and some factors such as nutritional habits, the time to give supplementary foods. It’s needed to strengthen education and communication activities in order to improve the nutritional knowledge and practice of the mothers, to reduce the rate of malnutrition as well as overweight and obesity in children <5 years old.

Surveillance of height and weight of students – pupils in the North areas, 2002

In the group of male and female young subjects living in the South Viet Nam, body height is developed stably, reaching 166,1 cm in male and 154,7cm in female, who living in the family of worker, moving moderately and no having morbide sequellae. Thus, the height of young persons had been improved by 7-9cm in male and 5cm in female, in comparing with that of 25 previous years. The weight had been improved in the age group of 15-24 years in male subject, however in female it had been at the age of 15-19 then reduced lightly.