The CIAF provides more precision in identifying the nutritionally vulnerable segment of the population. The disaggregation of CIAF has an adequate potential to enhance the efficacy of a nutritional intervention programme by identifying double or multiple failures.

There is a high prevalence of undernutrition among the children. Urgent nutritional intervention is necessary to ameliorate their nutritional status.

These findings are important for future investigations in the field and in epidemiological and clinical settings so as to accurately identify risk of lower or higher adiposity and body composition using FM and FFM.

The combination of UMA, UFA, UAMAH and conventional nutritional indices appear to be useful for assessment of child under-nutrition.

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The present cross-sectional study examines the association of maternal nutritional status, body composition and socio-economic status with newborn low birth weight (LBW). It was conducted on 503 mothers and their singleton newborns in an urban hospital in Siliguri, West Bengal, India. The maternal anthropometric measurements (weight, height, mid-upper arm circumference and triceps skinfold), socio-economic variables (education, household income, occupation and birth order) and newborn birth weight were recorded. The average birth weight was 2.746 (+/-0.40) kg and 17.30% of the newborns had LBW. The multinomial regression analysis showed maternal age, height, weight nutritional status, birth order and household income to have significant associations with newborn LBW. The receiver operating characteristic curve-area under curve analysis showed maternal weight and mid-upper arm circumference to be the best surrogate measures of LBW.

BACKGROUND: Undernutrition is a global public health problem that causes premature morbidity and ill-health conditions and has long-lasting physiological effects in children. The present study assesses the prevalence of wasting [low mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC)-for-age] among children and to determine the association of wasting with different socio-economic and socio-demographic variables. METHODS: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among 1222 pre-school children (boys: 589; girls: 633), aged 1-5 years, in Darjeeling district, North Bengal, India, using multistage stratified random sampling method. The MUAC was measured using the standard anthropometric procedure. Low MUAC-for-age was assessed by comparing with a standard age-sex-specific reference population (WHO, 1995). Children with MUAC value were found to be the z-scores <-3SD, and <-2 SD were considered to be severely and moderately wasted, respectively. The socio-economic and socio-demographic variables were recorded using structured schedule methods. The data were statistically analyzed based on descriptive statistics, chi-square analysis and logistic regression using SPSS (version, 17.0). RESULTS: The age-specific mean MUAC ranged from 126.1-142.5 mm (boys) and 126.9-136.4 mm (girls). The prevalence of wasting was very high (boys: 62.3%; girls: 63.3%) (p>0.05). The logistic regression analysis observed that age, gender, birth order, area (rural), maternal education, household income and mothers' age were significantly associated with the prevalence of wasting (p<0.05). CONCLUSION: Using MUAC-for-age, a high prevalence of wasting was observed among the children. Birth order, maternal education and maternal occupation were important determinants of wasting. There is an urgent requirement of nutritional intervention programmes to ameliorate the nutritional status of the children.