Introduction: Despite the high prevalence of malnutrition in Yemen, little is known on malnourished Yemeni adolescents in Malaysia. This study aimed to assess the body weight status among Yemeni adolescents in Malaysia and its association with sociodemographic factors and body image. Methods: A cross-sectional study involving 364 Yemeni adolescents aged between 12 to 18 years were recruited from four schools in Selangor and Putrajaya, Malaysia. Sociodemographic factors and body image data were collected through face to face interview. Height and body weight were measured and body mass index (BMI) was calculated. Results: The prevalence of overweight and obesity was 23.6%, with 5.2% of thinness. Multivariable logistic regression revealed that a family income greater than RM5,001 (OR = 3.77, p = 0.004), body shape dissatisfaction (OR = 3.54, p = 0.001) and perception of overweight/obesity (OR = 5.75, p = 0.001) were associated with an increased risk of being overweight and obese. Whereas a positive perception of underweight (OR = 0.23, p = 0.009) was found to be a significant protective factor against overweight and obesity. Conclusion: Overweight and obesity are prevalent among Yemeni adolescents in Malaysia. These findings highlight the need for regular weight status assessments amongst adolescents. Additionally, an obesity intervention program that incorporates body image perception may improve the children’s body weight status.

Aflatoxins are ubiquitous and occur in food. Exposure to aflatoxins seriously impact the health of human and animal. It is concerning especially when aflatoxins are odourless, colourless, and tasteless that hardly be detected through naked eyes. Ingestion of aflatoxin-contaminated food contributes the major route of exposure. The present review is an update on the aflatoxin occurrence in food, aflatoxin regulations in food, and recent risk assessment of aflatoxin exposure in Malaysia. Peanuts and chili were more prone to aflatoxin contamination in Malaysia. The extreme weather experienced in Malaysia and global climatic change may worsen the aflatoxin contamination in food. The regulatory standards for aflatoxins imposed by Malaysia are less stringent than developed countries. The dietary exposure of aflatoxins among Malaysian was relatively high as compared with other Asia countries, ranging from 0.002 to 34.00 ng/kg body weight/day. Nonetheless, Malaysian population had low risk of aflatoxin-related liver cancer, with an estimated liver cancer risk of <1 cancer case/100,000 population/year.

Introduction: Dissatisfaction towards the quality of foodservice can affect several important aspects such as nutritional intake and financial burden. The effect of dissatisfaction towards nutritional aspect can be observed via a decline in dietary intake. Therefore, reliable and valid questionnaires are important to measure patients’ satisfaction with hospital foodservice. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the construct validity and reliability of a developed questionnaire in a local setting. Methods: A questionnaire adapted from previous studies and consisting of 27 statements from four dimensions, was administered to a total of 277 hospitalised patients in a government hospital. Factor analysis and reliability analysis were conducted using SPSS version 25. Results: Principal component of factor analysis revealed that the final questionnaire contained four main foodservice dimensions, namely food properties, staff and meal service reliability, customisation, and physical and social aspects. The reliability analysis revealed that the Cronbach’s alpha value ranged from 0.55 to 0.84 for these foodservice dimensions. The analysis showed that the alpha value differed from one dimension to another such as food properties (α=0.84), staff and meal service reliability (α=0.67), customisation (α=0.69) and physical and social aspects (α=0.55). Conclusion: Twenty-seven questionnaire items were retained because their factor loadings were greater than 0.35. Therefore, the questionnaire on patients’ satisfaction towards hospital foodservice was considered reliable and valid. The classification of the four dimensions provided detailed information of the satisfaction level, relationship and influence on the foodservice dimensions, which contributed to satisfaction towards hospital foodservice.

Introduction: “Frailty Intervention through Nutrition Education and Exercise (FINE)” program is an educational program, an initiative to ameliorate frailty status among elderly due to the alarming number of frailty cases in Malaysia. The current study aims to develop and determine the validity and reliability of the KAP questionnaire on frailty, nutrition and exercise to assess the effectiveness of the “FINE” program among the Malaysian elderly. Methods: The KAP questionnaire was created based on the developed frailty module and education materials. Content and face validity were conducted before the reliability study among five health professionals and 20 elderly, while 79 elderly were involved in a reliability study in three different Projek Perumahan Rakyat (PPR) flats in the Kuala Lumpur area. Data were analysed to determine its internal consistency reliability. Results: Six items were removed during content and face validity, two from each domain. All items in the knowledge section were within an acceptable range of difficulty and discrimination following the item analysis. Yet, item-to-total correlation removes one item for attitude and four items for the practice domain. The analysis found that the internal consistency reliability was 0.852, 0.732 and 0.600 for the KAP section, respectively. Conclusion: The final version of the KAP questionnaire consisted of (11) knowledge, nine (9) attitudes and six (6) practice items proven to be valid and reliable. Thus, it could be used to assess the effectiveness of the “FINE” program among the Malaysian elderly.

Introduction: Prevalence of malnourished children in Putrajaya was unexpectedly high in 2016. This paper describes the study protocol for a case-control study conducted to identify the associated factors of malnutrition among children under 5 years old in Putrajaya. Methods: This study involved two phases. Phase I was ‘screening’ where all children aged 6-59 months in 118 preschools and four government health clinics were measured for their weight and height. The World Health Organization Anthro software was used to determine the nutritional status of these children. Phase II was the ‘interview’ where children from screening were sampled into four pairs of case and control. The optimum sample size for the case of stunted, wasted, underweight, and overweight were 380, 335, 318, and 308, respectively. The same number of controls were recruited. Parents/caregivers of selected children were approached to obtain data on parental factors, children factors, food intake factors, and environmental factors that contributed to malnutrition. Data analysis was performed by multiple logistic regression in SPSS version 26. Results: Screening phase successfully measured 8,261 (50.1%) children from an estimated 16,500 children under 5 years old in Putrajaya. The number of children who were stunted, wasted, underweight, and overweight were 2,105 (25.5%), 512 (6.2%), 1,516 (18.4%), and 248 (3.0%), respectively. As overweight was undersampled, the number of controls for overweight was doubled to increase the power of the study. Parents/caregivers of selected cases and controls were interviewed in their household or any other venues at their convenience. Conclusion: This protocol promises beneficial outputs to stakeholders and policy makers that can be used for combating malnutrition in children.