Investigation into malnutrition Prevalence rate and effective factors on under - five - year - old children in Maneh - Semelghan city (2012-2013)

Back ground& Malnutrition in under 5 year old children is one of the main issues of our country. To achieve the goal of higher healthy children، nutrition condition and the related risk should be identified. In this descriptive – cross sectional study، 596 under – five – year – old children in Maneh – Semelghan were examined by classified sampling method. The children were 0 – 60 months old، using NCHS reference curve for comparison. For evaluating the nutrition، three indices: weight for Gomez Age standard، weight for height and height for Waterlow Age standard were used for assessing underweight، wasting and stunting respectively. The data were analyzed by SPSS and Chi – Square (P≤0. 05). Children in this study suffered from under weightness (%10. 5)، stunting (%9. 3) and wasting (%10. 8). The predisposing factors of children malnutrition (parent education level، father’s job، child’s weight at the moment of being born) were significantly related to the issue. The results show that nutrition of the children in Maneh – Semelghan is not satisfactory and they suffer from severe to chronic malnutrition. It seems that low level education of mothers and also children’s weight lower than 2500 gr at the moment of being born can be considered as a risk factor on stunting and wasting of children.