Shifts towards overweight and double burden of malnutrition among socio-economically vulnerable children: a longitudinal ecological analysis of Brazilian municipalities.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the shifts and factors associated with different scenarios resulting from the prevalence of child stunting and overweight in Brazilian municipalities.

DESIGN

This is an ecological study using municipality-level panel data of stunting and overweight prevalence and socio-economic characteristics from 2008 to 2014. The municipalities were classified according to the WHO-UNICEF prevalence thresholds for stunting and overweight and were categorised into four nutritional scenarios: no burden (prevalence of stunting < 20 % and overweight < 10 %), stunting burden (prevalence of stunting ≥ 20 % and overweight < 10 %), overweight burden (prevalence of stunting < 20 % and overweight ≥ 10 %) and double burden (prevalence of stunting ≥ 20 % and overweight ≥ 10 %).

SETTING

Totally, 4443 Brazilian municipalities.

PARTICIPANTS

Aggregated data of children under 5 years old enrolled in the Brazil's conditional cash transfer programme (Bolsa Família).

RESULTS

A mean reduction from 14·2 % to 12·7 % in the prevalence of stunting and an increase from 17·2 % to 18·4 % in the prevalence of overweight were observed. The predominant scenarios were overweight burden and double burden. The odds of both scenarios increased with higher gross domestic product (GDP) per capita and decreased with higher unemployment rates. Stunting and double burden decreased with higher expected years of schooling, and stunting burden increased with household crowding.

CONCLUSION

Our findings indicate an advanced nutrition transition stage in Brazil, associated mainly with municipal GDP per capita growth, which has contributed to increasing the burden of overweight alone or coexisting with stunting (double burden) among children in the most socio-economically vulnerable strata of the population.