F&N Bulletin Vol 23 No 1b - United Nations University

Introduction to three regional studies of the nutritional
status of urban primary schoolchildren
The next three papers have the common objective of
providing information on the nutritional status of 8-
to 10-year-old children in urban centers of three South
Asian countries that are beginning the demographic
and health transition. They are Manila, Philippines;
West Jakarta and Bogor, Indonesia; and Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia. All three studies measured height and weight
in both public and private schoolchildren and calculated
indices of stunting, wasting, underweight, and
obesity. Not surprisingly the private schoolchildren
had less undernutrition and a higher prevalence of
overweight and obesity. Nevertheless, by current Western
trends overweight and obesity are still low but
rising.
The prevalence rates of urban wasting, stunting,
and underweight are decreasing and relatively low
compared with those of populations in the cities of
South Asia and some countries of Africa and Latin
America. The authors and their sponsor, International
Life Sciences Institute Southeast Asia (ILSISEA), are
to be commended for paying attention to the growing
urban populations in their countries with a common
approach that makes possible comparisons among
them. Public school students in the Philippines are the
worst off, and overweight and obesity is beginning to
be a significant public health problem among private
school students in all three studies.
All three studies encountered the problem that
weight-for-height Z scores could not be calculated
for some of the 10 year old girls because the National
Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) reference standards
in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS) Anthro program did not include a sufficient
height range. This needs to be corrected.
Food and Nutrition Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 1 © 2002, The United Nations University. 23