Double burden of maternal and child malnutrition and socioeconomic status in urban Sri Lanka

Chisa Shinsugi, Deepa Gunasekara, N K Gunawardena, Wasanthi Subasinghe, Miki Miyoshi, Satoshi Kaneko and Hidemi Takimoto

PLOS ONE, 2019, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-13

Abstract: Child malnutrition and maternal obesity are serious public health issues in Sri Lanka. This study explores the associations between socioeconomic status and the double burden of malnutrition among school-aged children and within their household. A total of 543 primary school children aged 5–10 years (204 boys and 339 girls) in Gampaha District, Sri Lanka, were included in the analysis. The nutritional statuses of thinness, normal, overweight, and obesity for children and mothers were defined according to WHO growth references and body mass index. Maternal education, household equivalent income, and maternal employment were used as socioeconomic status indicators. The proportion of child thinness and overweight was 19.3% and 13.4%, respectively, and that of maternal overweight (body mass index ≥ 25 kg/m2) was 36.5%. A positive correlation was found between maternal body mass index and the child’s body mass index for age z-score in older boys and younger girls. A multivariate stepwise logistic regression analysis showed that lower education of mothers posed a higher association with child thinness (adjusted odds ratio = 2.33, 95% confidence interval: 1.08–5.00). Mothers with overweight and obesity were less likely to have a child with thinness (adjusted odds ratio = 0.30, 95% confidence interval: 0.16–0.58). Maternal employment status and household equivalent income were not significantly, but marginally, associated with child overweight and obesity. Socioeconomic inequality combined with maternal nutritional status affected child malnutrition. These findings suggest that the underlying circumstances within households should be considered to improve child malnutrition.

Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0224222 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 24222&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0224222

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0224222

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().