Nutritional Status and Related Factors in Children, Bandar Turkmen District, Iran

Background: Prevalence of protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) is one of the important problems of third-world countries including Iran. This study assessed nutritional status and some related factors among children aged 0-5 years in Bandar Turkmen district.

Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 616 children aged less than 5 years were selected with stratified random sampling. Malnutrition was defined as <-2 SD National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reference (weight for age, weight for height and height for age respectively). Obesity was defined as > +2 SD NCHS reference. Data were collected by interview with mothers and were analyzed with SPSS-11.5 software.

Results: In this study, prevalence of underweight, wasting and stunting and obesity were 3.7, 3.9, 7 and 6% respectively. Exclusively breastfeeding, mother’s BMI, mother’s weight and parental educational and economic status had significant correlation with children’s PEM (p<0.05). Birth weight <2500 g and >4000 g (p=0.031), breast feeding duration <18 months (p=0.017), mother’s present age ≥37 years (p=0.039), mother’s delivery age >30 years (p=0.043) and formula or cow’s milk plus breast feeding up to 6 months old (p=0.018) had significant correlation with children’s obesity. In multivariate analysis on logistic regression, mother’s nutritional knowledge (OR=11.22, p=0.001) was most important risk factor for PEM. Exclusively breast feeding up to 6 months of age rather than formula or cow’s milk plus breast feeding, reduced 2.45 times obesity risk (p=0.019).

Conclusion: We conclude that breast feeding at first 6 months of age, longer breast feeding duration and pregnancy in lower than 30 years of age reduce risk of child nutritional status.