Ethnic Variations in Nutritional Status among Preschool Children in Northern Vietnam: A Cross-Sectional Study.

(1) Background: Vietnam is a multiethnic country undergoing rapid economic development, the improvement in nutritional status in preschool children is not equally shared by all ethnic groups; (2) Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed from September-December 2018 on 16,177 children aged 24-60 months representing Kinh (n = 14421), Muong (n = 1307) and Tay (n = 449) ethnic groups. Prevalence of malnutrition, overweight, obesity and anthropometric indices were compared across ethnic groups, using WHO 2006 child growth standards; (3) Results: The prevalence of malnutrition among children of Kinh, Muong and Tay origins was 14.7%, 34.3% and 43.2%, respectively. The corresponding data for overweight was 5.5%, 2.7%, 2.2% and for obesity 2.8%, 0.8% and 0.4%, respectively. The prevalence of stunting remained the highest in three subtypes of malnutrition in all ethnic groups. Kinh children were heavier and taller than the other groups, while Muong children were taller than Tay children (p-value < 0.001); and (4) Conclusions: Malnutrition remains a major public health issue among children of minor ethnicities while overweight and obesity is an emerging challenge for the Kinh ethnic group. The results imply that a community-based intervention should be specific to ethnicity to reduce the gap in nutritional status between ethnic groups in Vietnam.

Childhood Obesity Is a High-risk Factor for Hypertriglyceridemia: A Case-control Study in Vietnam

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between dyslipidemia and obesity status among Viet-namese adolescents. METHODS: In this case-control study, 282 adolescents (6–11 years), including 88 obese cases and 194 normal-weight controls, were recruited from a population-based cross-sectional study from two provinces in Vietnam. The anthropometric, blood lipid, and other laboratory test results of the study subjects were analyzed. RESULTS: Obese children tended to have more visceral fat (Pearson's r = 0.795, p < 0.0001) than subcutaneous fat (Pearson's r = 0.754, p < 0.0001), and this difference was associated with an increase in blood triglyceride level (Pearson's r = 0.232, p < 0.05) and a strikingly high rate of hypertriglyceridemia (38.6%). We also found that birth weight and parental body mass index were related to the status of obesity among the study subjects. However, only birth weight was significantly higher in the obese group than in the normal weight group. These findings indicate the effect of prenatal nutrition on childhood obesity. Furthermore, high-birth weight children had a surprisingly high rate of obesity. CONCLUSION: Together, our data suggest that obesity increased the risk for hypertriglyceridemia, which was, at least partially, due to prenatal nutrition.