Height, stunting, and refractive error among rural Chinese schoolchildren: the See Well to Learn Well project.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the hypothesis that changes in nutritional status could be partly responsible for observed increases in myopia prevalence among Chinese children.


METHODS
Cross-sectional cohort study.


METHODS
Rural Chinese secondary school children participating in a study of interventions to promote spectacle use were randomly sampled (20% of children with uncorrected vision >6/12 bilaterally, and 100% of remaining children) and underwent cycloplegic refraction with subjective refinement and measurement of height and weight. Stunting was defined according to the World Health Organization standard population.


RESULTS
Among 3226 children in the sample, 2905 (90.0%) took part. Among 1477 children undergoing refraction, 1371 (92.8%) had height and weight measurements. These children had a mean age of 14.5 +/- 1.4 years, 59.8% were girls, and mean spherical equivalent refraction was -1.93 +/- 1.82 diopters. Stunting was present in 87 children (6.4%). While height was inversely associated with refractive error (RE) (taller children were more myopic) among boys (r = -0.147, P = .001), this disappeared when adjusting for age, and no such association was observed among girls. Neither girls nor boys with stunting differed significantly in refraction from children without stunting, and neither stunting nor height was associated with RE when adjusting for age, height, and parental education. The power of this study to have detected a 0.75 diopters difference in RE between children with and without stunting was 0.96.


CONCLUSIONS
Results from this cross-sectional study are not consistent with the hypothesis that nutritional status is a determinant of RE in this setting.
Sharma
Abhishek
A
Oxford University Department of Public Health, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Congdon
Nathan
N
Gao
Yang
Y
Lu
Yaogui
Y
Ye
Yanru
Y
Wu
Jing
J
Lam
Dennis S C
DS
Li
Liping
L
Wu
Jiasi
J
Tse
Yee Kit
YK
Zhang
Mingzhi
M
Song
Yue
Y
Griffiths
Sian
S
D000293:Adolescent; D044466:Asian People / Q000208:ethnology*; D001827:Body Height; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005139:Eyeglasses; D005260:Female; D006130:Growth Disorders / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009216:Myopia / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy; D009752:Nutritional Status; D015995:Prevalence; D012029:Refraction, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014792:Visual Acuity / Q000502:physiology