Nutritional status of preschool children from Rio Branco/AC

Resumen

The purpose of this study was to analyze the nutritional status of preschool children from Rio Branco/AC. Therefore, 145 boys (6.32 ±0.47 yrs) and 147 girls (6.21 ±0.40 yrs) from public schools enrolled the study. The nutritional status was ascertained by z-scores for weight-for-age, weight-for-stature and stature-for-age, using the Epi-Info program (3.3.2, 2005). The t-test for independent samples was used to compare z-scores by sexes, using the SPSS statistical program, v.13. It was observed that girls showed significantly higher mean z-score values stature-for-age (0.463) and weight-for-age (0.129) than boys (0.119 and 0.177, respectively, p< 0.05). However, for the z-score for weight-for-stature, no difference was observed (girls -0.342 and boys -0.406). For all indexes, the cutoff point for severe malnutrition (values below –2 z-scores) determined prevalences lower than 3.4%. On the other hand, weight-for-stature pointed a 2.0% prevalence of obesity (values above +2 z-scores) in both sexes. The prevalences of weight-for-stature values among z-scores between –2 and –1 among both the boys and girls were high, respectively 27.6% and 21.8%, indicating acute malnutrition. It was concluded that there was a low prevalence of severe malnutrition and obesity. However, a high amount of students had acute malnutrition. There were also low coexistence of malnutrition and obesity among preshool children from Rio Branco/AC.