Professional paper
NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF THE PRESCHOOL AGE CHILDREN FROM BOSNIAN NORTHWESTERN CANTON
Edina Šertović
orcid.org/0000-0001-6259-7226
; University of Bihac, Biotechnical Faculty, Luke Marjanovića bb, 77000 Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Vildana Alibabić
; University of Bihac, Biotechnical Faculty, Luke Marjanovića bb, 77000 Bihac, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Ibrahim Mujić
; Colegium Fluminense, Polytechnic of Rijeka, Trpimirova 2/V, HR-51000 Rijeka, Croatia
Abstract
Improper nutrition at an early age is an impact factor for the possible occurrence of obesity, diabetes, atherosclerosis or cardiovascular diseases in later years. As these diseases have become world’s biggest health problem, and are becoming more prevalent in children, it is very important to monitor the nutritional status during the period of intense growth and development of children. For this purpose, anthropometric methods - which in addition to examining the current situation and the appropriateness of the process of growth and development, are important to assess the risk for health in later years – are used. The aim of this study was to assess the nutritional status of preschool children attending kindergartens in the municipalities of Una Sana Canton (Bosnia and Herzegovina) during two years of research (2014 and 2015) by measuring their body weight (BW) and height (H), and calculating body mass index (BMI) and body mass index percentage (BMI%).
The study included 356 children, aged 2-6 years, of which 55.4% were boys, and 44.6% girls. The girls grew slightly more on average (5.25 cm/yr) than the boys (4.0 cm/yr), but the growth was not accompanied by a corresponding increase in body mass, which averaged 2.1 kg per year for the girls and 1.9 kg for the boys and in both cases was lower than the normal growth and development. This resulted in a high percentage of children in the categories of underweight or risk of malnutrition (21.5%) and in disturbingly low percentage of normal weight children (45.7%). The percentage of overweight and obese children was 32.6%, which is a lower share compared to the neighboring countries. However, it is still high and requires the need for both the constant monitoring of nutritional status and the introduction of preventive education programs in pre-school system.
Keywords
preschool children; obesity; overweigh; growth; nutritional status
Hrčak ID:
174542
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2016.
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