Chronic Undernutrition and Food Insecurity Among Children and Adolescent Girls in Myanmar (P04-052-19)

Abstract

Objectives Myanmar has recently conducted the first ever comprehensive nation-wide Micronutrient and Food Consumption Survey to provide the update and reliable data required for planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of nutrition interventions. This abstract presents about data on anthropometric indicators and household food security. Methods The study was a nation-wide cross-sectional survey conducted from Nov 2017 to May 2018 in all 15 states/regions (SR) of Myanmar. Thirty clusters per SR (total 450 clusters) were selected by probability proportionate to size method. Simple random sampling was applied for selection of 60 households in each cluster, total 27,339 households were studied. Measurements of weight and height in 6–59 month children (n = 8959), 5–9 year children (n = 9000), 10–14 year (adolescent) girls (n = 919), reproductive age women (15–49 years) (n = 9027) and 15–49 year men (n = 9022) and household food security status were assessed. Results One third (33.2%) of households were suffering from food insecurity. Among children 6–59 months, 26.7% were stunted, 6.7% were wasted, 19.1% were underweight and 0.8% had overweight. In 5–9 year children, 22.1% were stunted, 14.6% had thinness and 3.3% had overweight; in adolescent girls, 24.2% were stunted, 18.8% had thinness and 5.5% had overweight. Higher rate of stunting rate was found in children and adolescent girls from food insecure households than those from food secure ones. Underweight was found in 14.3% and 19.7%; overweight in 22.9% and 11.4%; and obesity in 7.3% and 2% of women and men respectively. Conclusions Myanmar is facing both acute (>5% wasting) and chronic undernutrition (>20% stunting) as public health problems among preschool children. High burden of chronic undernutrition among these children may pose increased risk of overweight among adolescents and adult population. Although Myanmar is known as food secure at union level being an agricultural country, 1 in 3 households in the country is still food insecure and facing undernutrition from childhood to adolescent and adult. Coordinated efforts should be made to improve nutritional status of population such as improving agriculture and livestock sectors, promotion of essential health services including quality antenatal care, promotion of optimal infant and young child feeding and healthy dietary habits. Funding Sources Myanmar Ministry of Health and Sports, WHO, UNICEF and World Bank group funded this nationwide survey. Supporting Tables, Images and/or Graphs

Underweight and Associated Factors Among Teenage Adolescent Girls in Resource-poor Settings: A Cross-sectional Study

“…16,17 Researchers in recent studies overlooked several important predictors of underweight adolescent girls such as sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors, 18,19 parental education,- 18,20 occupation, 20 dietary habits 5,18 and food insecurity. 21,22 It is well known that being underweight is one of the major public health concerns in teenage adolescent, especially school-aged children in South East Asian countries as it impacts health, cognition, and educational achievements. 3,23 Moreover, it is well-known that the poor health and adverse nutritional wellbeing of teenage adolescent girls can have farreaching consequences of intergenerational cycle of malnutrition, productivity, and economy losses.…”