Saif Sabeen, Anwar Sofia
Department of Economics, Government College University, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
BMC Nutr. 2023 Oct 30;9(1):120. doi: 10.1186/s40795-023-00771-4.
Malnutrition among children is pervasive in South Asia and there are also reports of overnutrition. To better understand this phenomenon, we need a composite measure. However, the existing measures such as CIAF (Composite Index of Anthropometric Failure) and its revised version have ignored the overnutrition aspect of the phenomenon. This study proposes an extended version of CIAF which also considers overnutrition. This new measure was compared with the existing measures by using data from 1990 to 2018 for three selected South Asian countries including Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. We also examined the effects of socioeconomic and environmental variables on the outcome variable. The results reveal that the new measure (ECIAF) is better at measuring the phenomena. The burden of overall malnutrition has been decreased in the region. However, an increase in the concomitant prevalence of wasting and underweight is observed in both Pakistan and India and stunting and overweight is observed only in India. Besides, political stability, prevalence of undernourishment, anemia in children, mother's education, household size, dependency ratio, air pollution and unimproved sanitation are significantly correlated with childhood malnutrition. The findings also testified to long-run cointegrating relationship among the variables.
儿童营养不良在南亚地区普遍存在，同时也有关于营养过剩的报道。为了更好地理解这一现象，我们需要一个综合指标。然而，现有的指标，如儿童综合营养状况指数（CIAF）及其修订版，都忽略了该现象中营养过剩的方面。本研究提出了一个扩展版的CIAF，该版本也考虑了营养过剩的情况。通过使用1990年至2018年巴基斯坦、印度和孟加拉国这三个选定南亚国家的数据，将这一新指标与现有指标进行了比较。我们还研究了社会经济和环境变量对结果变量的影响。结果表明，新指标（扩展版儿童综合营养状况指数，ECIAF）在衡量这一现象方面表现更好。该地区总体营养不良负担有所减轻。然而，在巴基斯坦和印度，消瘦和体重不足的伴随患病率均有所上升，而发育迟缓与超重现象仅在印度被观察到。此外，政治稳定性、儿童营养不良患病率、贫血、母亲教育程度、家庭规模、抚养比、空气污染和卫生条件差与儿童营养不良显著相关。研究结果还证明了这些变量之间存在长期协整关系。
