One in ten Brazilian children up to 5 years old is overweight. Overweight was also recorded in more than half of mothers with children in this age group: 58.5%. Data are from the National Child Food and Nutrition Study (Enani-2019).
Commissioned by the Ministry of Health, the survey evaluated 14,558 children and 12,155 biological mothers in 12,524 Brazilian households, in 123 municipalities in 26 states and the Federal District, between February 2019 and March 2020.
According to researchers, excess weight impairs child growth and development and can lead to serious chronic diseases throughout life, such as cardiovascular problems, diabetes, hypertension and even cancer.
“We call overweight the combination of overweight and obesity. Among Brazilian children under five years of age, 7% are overweight and 3% are obese. Among biological mothers of children in this age group, overweight appears in 32.2% of cases and obesity in 26.3%”, explained, in a note, the coordinator of Enani-2019, Gilberto Kac, professor at the Institute of Nutrition Josué de Castro, from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (INJC/UFRJ).
Enani-2019 also shows that almost a fifth of Brazilian children up to five years old (18.6%) are at risk of being overweight.
“These are children who need to be closely monitored, because the weight gain curve for age is already higher than recommended by the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO). At this stage, it is still possible to intervene and improve health status, avoiding short, medium and long-term consequences,” added Kac.
The coordinator of Enani-2019 highlighted that the results bring up-to-date scientific evidence for the definition of public health policies.
“Until then, the most recent data on the anthropometric nutritional status of mothers and children up to 5 years old were from 2006. Since then, the scenario has changed a lot. The prevalence of overweight in children in this age group increased from 6.6% in 2006 to 10% in 2019. Among mothers, the increase was from 43% to 58.6% in the same period,” he said.
Stature
One data caught the attention of the Enani-2019 researchers: 7% of Brazilian children up to 5 years old have short stature for their age.
“The low height for their age shows that these children suffered restrictions that hampered their growth and development. This condition may be due to recurrent infections and is related to low consumption of nutrients, possibly associated with food insecurity. The prevalence of the indicator decreases as the age group of children increases, which suggests that the situation has worsened in recent years”, explained Kac.
According to the study, the prevalence of low height for age is 9% among babies aged up to 11 months and 10.2% among those aged 12 to 23 months. The frequency of the problem is lower in children born up to 2016: 6.5% between 2 and 3 years old, 5.8% between 3 and 4 years old and 3.4% between 4 and 5 years old.
Enani-2019
Enani-2019 was commissioned by the Ministry of Health and coordinated by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). The project has a partnership with the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) and the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), under funding from the General Coordination of Food and Nutrition of the Ministry of Health and the National Institute for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).
According to UFRJ, it is the first nationally representative survey to simultaneously assess, in children under five years of age, breastfeeding practices, complementary feeding and individual food consumption, anthropometric nutritional status and micronutrient deficiencies, including iron and vitamin deficiencies. THE.
