[Nutritional status of preschool children attending the Chilean National Nursery Schools Council Programs (JUNJI): assessment of the agreement among anthropometric indicators of obesity and central obesity].
Historically, the anthropometric assessment of nutritional welfare programs has been targeted to assess nutritional deficiencies based on weight-to-age and height-to-age indicators. Recently, given the increase on childhood obesity, it has been also recommended the measurement of indicators of obesity (i.e., weight-to-height) and central obesity (i.e., waist circumference). However, the agreement of these indicators in preschool children is unclear. The aims of this study were: (1) assess the nutritional status of children attending the Chilean National Nursery Schools Council Program (JUNJI); (2) assess the agreement between general and central obesity anthropometric measurements in these children. In 574 girls and 580 boys, 3.0 to 5.9 years old, we measured: weight, height, waist and hip circumference, and five skinfolds. We used the WHO 2006 growth standards to estimate Z-scores. We defined general obesity as WHZ or BAZ= 2, and central obesity as waist circumference > or =90 percentile of NHANES III. The participants were on average slightly shorter but considerably heavier and obese than the reference populations. Prevalence of general obesity was close to 16% with both indicators while prevalence of central obesity reached 15%. There was good agreement among general obesity indicators and central obesity indicators (Kappa = 0.6-0.7). In summary, we found a high prevalence of obesity and central obesity among Chilean preschool children beneficiaries of a welfare program. At this age, there was a good agreement among general obesity indicators and central obesity indicators. These results suggest that waist circumferences measurements should not be incorporated to the program.
Gutiérez-Gómez
Yareni
Y
Instituto de Nutrición y Tecnología de los Alimentos, Universidad de Chile, Chile.
Kain
Juliana
J
Uauy
Ricardo
R
Galván
Marcos
M
Corvalán
Camila
C
D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D001837:Body Weights and Measures / Q000592:standards*; D002648:Child; D002656:Child Day Care Centers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D004506:Education, Nursing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009751:Nutritional Requirements; D009752:Nutritional Status / Q000502:physiology*; D009765:Obesity / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015588:Observer Variation; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D055105:Waist Circumference