title: Prevalence of malnutrition among preschool children in northeast of Iran, a result of a population based study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Malnutrition in preschool children is a significant problem and has been identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) as the most lethal form of malnutrition, indirectly or directly causes an annual death of at least 5 million children worldwide. The object of this study was to estimated the rate of underweight, stunting and wasting among preschool children in northeast of Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  A cross sectional population based study was conducted and 70339 children; 35792 males and 34547 females were recruited. The primary outcome variables were; weight, height, age and gender of the children. The sex and age specific rate and overall rate of underweight, stunting, and wasting were calculated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The rate of underweight, stunting, and wasting were 7.5%, 12.5% and 4.4% respectively. There were significant differences in stunting and wasting rate between boys and girls. The overall rate of stunting was significantly higher than the overall rates of underweight and wasting. The rate of malnutrition increased with child's age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In compare to WHO criteria, the rate of malnutrition among this study population was low. According to the higher rate of stunting, the main goal of future research and interventions must be finding the causes of deficiency in height growth and improving it.
authors: Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran.
authors: Abolfazl
authors: A
authors: Payandeh
authors: Azadeh
authors: A
authors: Saki
authors: Mohammad
authors: M
authors: Safarian
authors: Hamed
authors: H
authors: Tabesh
authors: Zahra
authors: Z
authors: Siadat
mesh_terms: D017677:Age Distribution; D001837:Body Weights and Measures; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007492:Iran / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000453:epidemiology*; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D015995:Prevalence; D017678:Sex Distribution; D013851:Thinness / Q000453:epidemiology; D019282:Wasting Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology