Andrissi Laura, Mottini Giovanni, Sebastiani Valeria, Boldrini Laura, Giuliani Alessandro
Istituto di Filosofia dell'Agire Scientifico e Tecnologico, Università Campus Bio-Medico, Rome, Italy. E-mail:
Ann Ist Super Sanita. 2013;49(4):340-6. doi: 10.4415/ANN_13_04_04.
The efficacy of interventions against children malnutrition crucially depends on a myriad of factors other than the simple food intake, that must be carefully studied in order to plan a balanced policy. The relation between dietary patterns and growth is at the very heart of the problem, especially in consideration of the fact that dietary pattern involves dimension other than pure caloric intake in its definition. In this work we investigated the relations between dietary pattern and growth comparing children from a rural and a urban area in Andean Peru, in terms of food habits and anthropometric variables to develop a model usable in context interventions against malnutrition.
A sample of 159 children (80 from urban, 79 from rural area), aged from 4 to 120 months (72.7 ± 37.5 SD) was collected. The data were investigated by a multidimensional (principal component analysis followed by inferential approach) analysis to correlate the different hidden dimensions of both anthropometric and dietary observables. The correlation between these dimensions (in the form of principal components) were computed and contrasted with the effects of age and urban/rural environments.
Caloric intake and growth were not linearly correlated in our data set. Moreover urban and rural environment were demonstrated to show very different patterns of both dietary and anthropometric variables pointing to the marked effect of dietary habits and demographic composition of the analyzed populations. The relation between malnutrition and overweight was at the same time demonstrated to follow a strict area-dependent distribution.
We gave a proof-of-concept of the non-linear character of the relation between malnutrition (in terms of caloric intake) and growth, pointing to the need to calibrate interventions on food pattern and not only quantity to contrast malnutrition effects on growth. The education toward a balanced diet must go hand-in-hand with the intervention on caloric intake in order to prevent effects on health.
对抗儿童营养不良的干预措施的成效，关键取决于诸多因素，而非仅仅是简单的食物摄入量。为了制定平衡的政策，必须对这些因素进行仔细研究。饮食模式与生长之间的关系是问题的核心，尤其是考虑到饮食模式在其定义中涉及的维度不仅仅是单纯的热量摄入。在这项研究中，我们比较了秘鲁安第斯地区农村和城市儿童的饮食习惯和人体测量变量，以研究饮食模式与生长之间的关系，从而建立一个可用于针对营养不良进行现场干预的模型。
收集了159名年龄在4至120个月（平均72.7±37.5标准差）的儿童样本（80名来自城市，79名来自农村）。通过多维分析（主成分分析后接推理方法）对数据进行研究，以关联人体测量和饮食观察指标的不同潜在维度。计算这些维度（以主成分形式）之间的相关性，并与年龄和城乡环境的影响进行对比。
在我们的数据集中，热量摄入与生长并非线性相关。此外，城市和农村环境在饮食和人体测量变量方面呈现出非常不同的模式，这表明饮食习惯和所分析人群的人口构成具有显著影响。同时，营养不良与超重之间的关系呈现出严格的地区依赖性分布。
我们证明了营养不良（就热量摄入而言）与生长之间关系的非线性特征，指出需要根据食物模式而非仅仅数量来校准干预措施，以对抗营养不良对生长的影响。为了预防对健康的影响，对均衡饮食的教育必须与热量摄入干预同步进行。
