Childhood malnutrition: Nutritional and social background analysis.

ABSTRACT

The analysis was done in 52 infants and Preschool children under 6 years of age who were referred to Pediatric nutrition clinic, Siriraj Hospital during September 1987 to August 1988 because of growth delay. AII of the patients, 18 boys and 34 girls were under 3rd percentile of body weight. 52% of the cases were 12.23 months old, while average age was 30 months. The onset of growth delay was noticed at the average age of 8.8 months. In 62% of the cases the onset was associated with breast milk weaning, while in 16% and 22% they were associated with additional food and illness (diarrhea, vomiting and measles) respectively. Eighty three percent of the cases was classified by modified Gomez’s criteria as having first degree malnutrition. While 17% was second degree. 29% was classified to be acute malnutrition. While another 29% was nutritional dwarfism and 40% was acute on chronic malnutrition by Waterloo’s classification. 71% and 96% of the cases were less than 10 percentiles of arm muscle area and arm fat area respectively. The three-day caloric count was completely performed in 20 patients. The caloric intake was found to be significantly lower than expected calories per both ideal body weight and recent weight. The average percentage of protein fat carbohydrate was 15 30 55.The amount of food and the way of feeding seemed to be more important to childhood malnutrition than the familial income.