Malnutrition and development among rural and urban school children in southern province of Hormozgan in Iran

The association between chronic severe malnutrition and poor mental development as a social and health problem that may lead to a behavioral dysfunction has been reported in several studies. This study has attempted to investigate the relation between stunted children and cognitive measures (IQ). In this study, 1945 school children (845 urban, 1100 rural) have randomly selected by using variable probability and cumulative frequency methods on 1.5 percent of whole school children population (130702) in southern province of Hormozgan. The nutritional status of children were determined by Index of Wt/Age, Ht/Age and Wt/Ht and intellectual quotient (IQ) measured by using good-enough Harriss Test on children attending the first year of school in the studied regions. The IQ test has been normalized for the studied population. The results showed that the percentage of stunting and Ht/Age (Z score) were higher in rural than urban population (32.5% in rural and 28.3% in urban children). The percentage of IQ scores below 80 was also greater in rural than urban children (63.8% in rural and 47% in urban children). Also, the number of children with IQ score above 110 were higher in urban than rural children (16.2% in urban and 9.1% in rural children). Stunting has also been diagnosed as the past-chronic malnutrition among children, mainly due to inadequate dietary intakes. The IQ scores of children were also affected as a consequent factor, which could lead to their limited school achievement.