[Nutritional status of urban and rural Chilean school children of the metropolitan area].
The objective of this study was to assess the nutritional status of chilean students by geographic area. In this respect, a representative sample of 4,509 students from elementary and high school was chosen from the Metropolitan Region of Chile (representative of 38.0% of chilean school population). Nutritional status was assessed through anthropometric measurements. Percent weight for age (% W/A), height for age (% H/A) and weight for height (% W/H) were compared with WHO standard; head circumference for age (% HC/A) with Tanner standard; arm circumference for age (% AC/A), triceps skinfold for age (% TS/A), arm muscle area for age (% AMA/A) and arm fat area/age (% AFA/A) with Frisancho norms. Socioeconomic status (SES) was measured through Graffar modified scale. Percent W/H is a better indicator of nutritional status due to growth failure which was thus detected in 27.6% of the whole sample (24.2% and 46.8%, respectively, in urban and rural area, p less than 0.001). According to % W/H, the frequencies of obesity were 13.4% and 10.5%, and those for undernutrition 5.7% and 8.2%, in urban and rural area, respectively, (p less than 0.05). Students from rural area showed significantly lower values for % HC/A, % AC/A, % TS/A and % AFA/A (p less than 0.001). There were no differences for % AMA/A. The fact that 90.5% of rural students belong to low SES must be taken into account to explain differences in the nutritional status of students of different geographic areas.
Ivanović
R
R
Unidad de Nutrición y Rendimiento Escolar, Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos, INTA.
Olivares
M
M
Ivanović
D
D
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000886:Anthropometry; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002677:Chile; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009752:Nutritional Status; D012016:Reference Values; D012424:Rural Population; D014505:Urban Population
Estado nutricional en escolares chilenos urbanos y rurales de la Región Metropolitana, 1986-1987.