Nutritional status and eating practices among children aged 4-6 years old in selected urban and rural kindergarten in Selangor, Malaysia

• Main Authors: Aziz, M.F.A (Author), Devi, M.N (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Eating practices; Kindergarten children; Nutritional status; Rural; Urban
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher; View in Scopus
• ISBN: 19921470 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.3923/ajcn.2012.116.131

Nutritional status and eating practices varies among urban and rural area because there are differences in environment and socioeconomic status. This cross-sectional study was aimed to compare and investigate the relationship between the nutritional status and eating practices among children aged 4-6 years old in urban and rural area in Selangor, Malaysia. 142 children from urban (n = 100) and rural (n = 42) participated in this study. The nutritional status of the subjects were evaluated by assessing their anthropometry values which were weight, height and Body Mass Index (BMI) and later compared with standard growth chart. The diet intake of the subjects were obtained using 3 days diet record and later compared with Malaysian Recommended Nutrient Intake (RNI). The t-test showed, there was a significant differences for weight for age and height for age among children from urban and rural area (p<0.05). Prevalence of wasting was higher among rural children (31%) than urban children (22%). Two-way ANOVA test showed that there were significant differences in nutrient intake between children from urban and rural area (p<0.05) with calorie intake among rural children higher (23%) than RNI, higher protein intake among urban (114%) and rural (165%) than RNI, calcium intake were lowered than RNI for urban (35%) and rural (17%). There was also a positive relationship between children' BMI with fast food intake (r = 0.274, p<0.05) and eating out (r = 0.207, p<0.05). As a conclusion, rural children had higher prevalence of undernutrition compared to the urban children but the prevalence of obesity were same in both areas. © 2012 Asian Network for Scientific Information.