IN the previous article of this two-part series, I outlined the many negative health impacts of childhood obesity. For the second part, we will shift our attention to the opposite side of the spectrum- children who are underweight.
The term “faltering growth” is used to describe children who are not growing at the expected rate for children of similar age and gender. The World Health Organization (WHO) has standardised the definition of faltering growth as two standard deviations (z-score of -2 to -3) below the mean for age and gender.
While we know that Malaysia holds the title of the most obese nation in South East Asia, a Global Nutrition Report in 2018 also puts us as the worst in ASEAN in terms of nutrition. The criteria of interest were a certain percentage of the population with growth stunting, anaemia in women of reproductive age, and obesity. In ASEAN, Malaysia is the only country to be reported to fulfil all three “burdens” listed above.
Local statistics estimate that in 2018, approximately 20% of our Malaysian children, or about 500,000 children, have faltering growth.
