An anthropometric study on the children of Tripura: Nutritional and health coverage and redefining WHO percentile cut-off points

Objectives: To provide baseline anthropometric data on the problems of malnutrition among different sub-groups of Tripura’s children aged up to 18+ years, consulting internationally recognized SD (standard deviation) system and to examine if there is any disagreement between the SD-and percentile-based cut-off points of malnutrition. Methods: A cross-sectional study of children’s lengths/heights and weights, and calculating individual body mass index (BMI) were undertaken. The study included 9,498 children aged 0+ to 18+ years from randomly selected 16 areas of Tripura. Medians of lengths/heights and BMI by age and sex, SD prevalence of stunting, wasting/thinness, overweight-cum-obesity by age group (under-five, above-five and above-ten children), sex, locality and caste, and SD and percentile prevalence of stunting, wasting/thinness, overweight-cum-obesity by age group (under-six and above-six children) were evaluated. Results: The problems of stunting and overweight-cum-obesity were more prevalent (p<0.001) among under-five children, and the problem of wasting/thinness more prevalent among above-five (p<0.001) and above-ten children (p<0.001) than the remaining groups. On the other hand, <-2SD and <3 percentile based prevalence of stunting and thinness differed significantly (p<0.001) among above-six children. Conclusions: Existence of under-nutrition among a group of children suggests undertaking intervention programs of health and nutrition for all children aged 0+-18+ years. However, for the assessment of under-nutrition, WHO (World Health Organization) percentile cut-off points of stunting and thinness for above-six children should be redefined for the agreement of their results with that of -2 SD cut-off points.