title: Machakos Project Studies: Agents affecting health of mother and child in a rural area of Kenya. XIV. Growth pattern or rural Akamba pre-school children.
abstract: Between June 1974 and February 1977, in one eighth sample of the Machakos Project area, weight and height were determined in all 1-60 months-olds. This resulted in 568 subjects producing averagely 9.3 monthly growth data over an average period of 22.2 months. Only subjects examined five times or over were considered. Weighing and measuring were done by home visiting fieldworkers. Growth in the first six months closely followed the Harvard Standards of weight-for-age (W/A) and height-for-age (H/A). In the course of the next six months this dropped until about 83% for W/A and 92% for H/A, to stay at these levels until the sixth year. In the group which persistently grew over 88% for W/A these values were 91.5% for W/A and 94.8% for H/A. This group is thought to represent the local standard for optimum growth. In the group which persisted at levels below 75% of W/A a distinction was made between normal slow growers and PEM cases. In both W/A was more compromitted than H/A. Children persistently or episodically under W/A 70% were considered malnourished; their incidence in the 1-5 year group was between 4.5 and 6.5%. There was no reason to put the PEM level above 70% of W/A; This should be used as a cut-off level for screening PEM cases. A diagram is presented to visualize the successive age cohorts simultaneously for W/A, H/A and W/H as regards their position to the respective Harvard Standards, indicating percentages of positive and negative deviators.
mesh_terms: D001827:Body Height; D001835:Body Weight; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007630:Kenya; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012424:Rural Population