Zhou Hong, Wang Xiao-Li, Ye Fang, Zeng Xiaopei Lily, Wang Yan
Department of Child, Adolescent and Woman's Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China.
Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2012;21(2):234-40.
The World Health Organization reported that inappropriate feeding in children is responsible for one-third of the cases of malnutrition. This cross-sectional study aimed to determine the prevalence of malnutrition and identify the relationship between feeding practices and malnutrition in children below 5 years, in 7 remote and poor counties of China. A sample of 2201 children and 1978 caregivers were obtained with multistage cluster random sampling. A survey about feeding practices among the caregivers was implemented using a structured questionnaire, and the health status of children was evaluated using anthropometric measurements. We found 5 problems: first, high prevalence of stunting, underweight and wasting in children below 5 years old (19.3%, 13.1% and 5.5%); second, short duration of breastfeeding for children below 36 months; third, low prevalence of exclusive breastfeeding among children below 6 months of age and continued breastfeeding to 1 year (17.5% and 32.2%). Fourth, although most of the infants (81.1%) between 6 and 8 months of age were given complementary foods, some of the 6- to 8-month-old infants did not receive any complementary foods. Last, a higher prevalence of stunting among Chinese children who had never been breastfed, who had been breastfed for less than 1 year, or had been fed with semi-solid foods of poor quality. Therefore, we suggest that more programs to increase caregivers' feeding knowledge and practices be conducted, to improve the health of children in remote and poor areas in China.
世界卫生组织报告称，儿童喂养不当导致了三分之一的营养不良病例。这项横断面研究旨在确定中国7个偏远贫困县5岁以下儿童营养不良的患病率，并确定喂养方式与营养不良之间的关系。通过多阶段整群随机抽样获得了2201名儿童和1978名照料者的样本。使用结构化问卷对照料者进行了关于喂养方式的调查，并通过人体测量评估了儿童的健康状况。我们发现了5个问题：第一，5岁以下儿童发育迟缓、体重不足和消瘦的患病率较高（分别为19.3%、13.1%和5.5%）；第二，36个月以下儿童母乳喂养时间短；第三，6个月以下儿童纯母乳喂养率低，且持续母乳喂养至1岁的比例低（分别为17.5%和32.2%）。第四，虽然大多数6至8个月大的婴儿（81.1%）添加了辅食，但一些6至8个月大的婴儿未添加任何辅食。最后，从未母乳喂养、母乳喂养时间不足1年或食用质量差的半固体食物的中国儿童发育迟缓患病率较高。因此，我们建议开展更多项目，以增加照料者的喂养知识和行为，改善中国偏远贫困地区儿童的健康状况。
