An intra-community profile of nutritional deficiency: a study of under-fives in a low-income community in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)

Abstract

This study is part of a larger epidemiological study concerned with the health status of children under the age of five carried out in the squatter settlement of Rocinha, and focuses on the nutritional profile of a representative sample of 591 children. According to the weight-for-age criteria (Gomez's classification), 23,9% and 2,0% were, respectively, mildly and moderately malnourished. This finding is in agreement with the assessment using weight-for-height and height-for-age as anthropometric indicators: (a) absence of acute malnutrition (wasting) indicated by a pattern overlapping that of an expected normal population, and (b) growth deficiency (stunting) indicated by 7% and 15% of children exceeding the proportion normally expected to be, respectively, below the -1 and -2 standard deviate limits. So far as growth failure was concerned, the following variables remained associated even when controlling for economic status (indicated by the environmental conditions of the household): low birth weight, number of siblings equal to or above three, male gender, a history of never having breastfed and a family history of previous sibling death. Each variable is discussed separately, as well as the overall nutritional profile and the marked social intra-community stratification related to growth deficit.