title: [Nutritional status of children and adolescents from a town in the semiarid Northeastern Brazil].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the nutritional status of schoolchildren, resident in a semiarid region in the Northeastern Brazil.
  
  
  METHODS
  This is a cross-sectional study, involving 860 children and adolescents aged from 5-19 years-old, enrolled in three public schools in the county. The selection of schools was non-probabilistic type and unintentional. The initial population, which integrated the database, was composed by 1,035 children and teenagers, and 175 students (16.9%) were excluded because of inconsistency in the anthropometric data, resulting in a sample of 860 students. The following outcomes were considered: stunting (malnutrition), overweight and obesity (overweight), being the height/age and body mass index/age (BMI/Age), indices respectively used. Children and adolescents with height <-2 standard deviations and overweight and obese weight z score ≥1 were considered stunted. The statistical analysis was descriptive.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The prevalence of stunting and overweight/obesity was 9.1% and 24.0%, respectively. Overweight and stunting were higher in adolescents aged 15 and over, compared to other age groups analyzed. In relation to gender, malnutrition presented itself in a similar way, but overweight was more frequent among females.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results revealed that excess weight, here represented by the sum of overweight and obesity, was more prevalent than stunting (malnutrition), highlighting the urgent need for attention to this problem in order to design interventions capable of contributing to the improvement of schoolchildren nutritional status.
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil.
authors.forename: Elyssia Karine Nunes Mendonça
authors.initials: EK
authors.lastname: Ramires
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil. Electronic address: risiamenezes@yahoo.com.br.
authors.forename: Risia Cristina Egito
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: de Menezes
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Juliana Souza
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil.
authors.forename: Maria Alice Araújo
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Oliveira
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil.
authors.forename: Tatiane Leocádio
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Temoteo
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil.
authors.forename: Giovana
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Longo-Silva
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Vanessa Sá
authors.initials: VS
authors.lastname: Leal
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, PE, Brasil.
authors.forename: Emília Chagas
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Costa
authors.affiliation: Universidade Federal de Alagoas (UFAL), Maceió, AL, Brasil.
authors.forename: Leiko
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Asakura
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D002980:Climate; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006130:Growth Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009752:Nutritional Status; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology*; D063766:Pediatric Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adolescent; Adolescente; Anthropometry; Antropometria; Avaliação nutricional; Child; Criança; Nutrition assessment