The Andalusian Nutritional Survey: comparison of the nutritional status of Andalusian children aged 6-60 months with that of the NCHS/CDC reference population.

Presented are the results of the anthropometric component of the 1985 Andalusian Nutritional Survey. The heights and weights of a representative sample of children aged 6-60 months were compared with data for the National Center for Health Statistics/Centers for Disease Control (NCHS/CDC) reference population. Of the 1181 preschool-age children surveyed, the great majority fell within +/- standard deviation (SD) scores for height-for-age (93.6%) and weight-for-height (93.5%), and most (87.7%) were within +/- 2 SD scores of the mean value for the NCHS/CDC reference population for both height-for-age and weight-for-height. The proportion of stunting was 3.2%, that of wasting 1.0%, and that of both stunting and wasting 0.4%. For both sexes, the distribution of height-for-age was comparable with that of the NCHS/CDC reference population, while that for weight-for-height was skewed to the right. This suggests that for the same height, the weight of Andalusian children increased more over the 5 years preceding the survey than that of the reference population over the period 1971-74. The data obtained could be used as a baseline to evaluate the effectiveness of future nutrition programmes for children who are at a high risk of undernutrition or obesity.