Overweight and short stature: the current face of malnutrition in a population at risk

Abstract

Introduction: malnutrition is a latent problem in Latin America, especially in low socioeconomic strata where poverty, the lack of access to nutritious food, the scarce knowledge regarding nutrition and lack of a culture of healthy eating are important limitations. Low-income teenage mothers are one of the most vulnerable groups. Our goal was to evaluate the current nutritional status of a group of low-income adolescent mothers and their children in Ecuador. Methodology: we performed an observational, prospective study of the nutritional status of adolescent mothers and their children. Demographic, clinical and anthropometric variables were collected, their corresponding percentiles and Z-scores were calculated, and nutritional indices were analyzed. Results: 17 adolescent mothers and 16 children were included. The median age for mothers was 19.6 years and 1.8 years for children. Short stature was found in 9/17 (52%) mothers and in 3/16 (18.8%) children. In the mother’s group, 29.4% (5/17) were overweight and 17.6% (3/17) were obese. No underweight participants were found. Conclusion: malnutrition in this study presented as overweight, obesity and short stature. There findings are relevant in finding new nutritional strategies to approach malnourishment in Ecuador.