title: Nutritional status of pre-school children from low income families.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We evaluated growth and nutritional status of preschool children between 2 and 6 years old from low income families from 14 daycare centers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional study with 1544 children from daycare centers of Santo Andre, Brazil. Body weight (W), height (H) and body mass index (BMI) were classified according to the 2000 National Center for Health Statistics (CDC/NCHS). Cutoff points for nutritional disorders: -2 z scores and 2.5 and 10 percentiles for malnutrition risk, 85 to 95 percentile for overweight and above BMI 95 percentile for obesity. Stepwise Forward Regression method was used including age, gender, birth weight, breastfeeding duration, age of mother at birth and period of time they attended the daycare center.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children presented mean z scores of H, W and BMI above the median of the CDC/NCHS reference. Girls were taller and heavier than boys, while we observed similar BMI between both genders. The z scores tended to rise with age. A Pearson Coefficient of Correlation of 0.89 for W, 0.93 for H and 0.95 for BMI was documented indicating positive association of age with weight, height and BMI. The frequency of children below -2 z scores was lower than expected: 1.5% for W, 1.75% for H and 0% for BMI, which suggests that there were no malnourished children. The other extremity of the distribution evidenced prevalence of overweight and obesity of 16.8% and 10.8%, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Low income preschool children are in an advanced stage of nutritional transition with a high prevalence of overweight.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Saúde Materno-infantil, Faculdade de Saúde Pública, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), São Paulo, SP, Brasil.
authors.forename: Denise O
authors.initials: DO
authors.lastname: Shoeps
authors.forename: Luiz Carlos
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: de Abreu
authors.forename: Vitor E
authors.initials: VE
authors.lastname: Valenti
authors.forename: Viviane G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Nascimento
authors.forename: Adriana G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: de Oliveira
authors.forename: Paulo R
authors.initials: PR
authors.lastname: Gallo
authors.forename: Rubens
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wajnsztejn
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Leone
mesh_terms: D015992:Body Mass Index; D001835:Body Weight; D001938:Brazil; D002648:Child; D015362:Child Nutrition Disorders / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D002664:Child Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic; D009309:National Center for Health Statistics, U.S.; D009752:Nutritional Status; D009765:Obesity / Q000191:economics / Q000453:epidemiology*; D011203:Poverty; D015995:Prevalence; D012574:Schools; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology