1.Nutritional Status of Children below Five Years in Malaysia: Anthropometric Analyses from the Third National Health and Morbidity Survey III (NHMS, 2006)
Khor GL ; Noor Safiza MN ; Jamalludin AB ; Jamaiyah H ; Geeta A ; Kee CC ; Rahmah R ; Alan Wong N F ; Suzana S ; Ahmad AZ ; Ruzita AT ; Ahmad FY
Malaysian Journal of Nutrition 2009;15(2):121-136
The Third National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS III) was conducted in 2006 on a nationally representative sample of population in Malaysia. Over
21,000 children aged 0-17.9 years were measured for body weight and stature according to the protocol of the World Health Organization. This article describes
the nutritional status of children aged 0-59.9 months. Mean z score for weightfor-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and BMI-for-age were compared with the
z-scores tables of the WHO standards. The overall prevalence of underweight
and stunting of the children were 12.9% and 17.2% respectively. These levels
included 2.4% severe underweight and 6.0% severe stunting. In terms of z scores,
the age group of 0–5.9 months showed the best nutritional status with mean
WAZ of -0.33 (95%CI: -0.52, 0.15) and -0.40 (-0.57, 0.24) for boys and girls
respectively, while mean HAZ was 0.64 (0.38, 0.89) for boys and 0.76 (0.54, 0.98)
for girls. Mean HAZ and WAZ status was least satisfactory after about 6 months,
suggesting a faltering in growth rate at an age that coincides with dependence on
complementary feeding. Prevalence of overweight based on BMI-for-age for the
sexes combined was 6.4%, while that based on WAZ was 3.4%. The NHMS III results indicate that Malaysian children have better nutritional status compared
to children under 5 years in neighbouring countries. In order to meet the targets set in the National Plan of Nutrition (2006-2015), more effective intervention
programmes are needed to accelerate the reduction of underweight and stunting, and to arrest the rise of overweight in young children.
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