Anthropometric measurements of school children in North-Eastern Morocco

Abstract

Malnutrition is one of the greatest problems facing developing countries, including rural and urban Morocco in terms of wasting and stunting among school children. However, malnutrition affects physical growth, cognitive development, physical work capacity, and it consequently influences human performance and health. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the prevalence of stunting, wasting, overweight and obesity among primary school children using anthropometric indices in the urban environment of Driouche (North East of Morocco). The nutritional status of 299 children (6 to 16 years of age) was assessed using the anthropometric measurement of WHO reference as Height for Age Z-score (HAZ), Weight for Age Z-score (WAZ) and Body Mass Index for Age Z-score (BAZ). The results obtained showed that the deficit in term of height for age was noticed for 5.7% of children and 6.7% of them suffer from wasting, according to our results we note, the prevalence of stunting increases significantly with age (p = 0.000,) and the prevalence of wasting increases significantly with age (p = 0.021). While, 6.7% and 10.8% of them suffer respectively of thinness and overweight. Moreover, the prevalence of obesity is only 2.7% of all the school children. In this area of study, malnutrition constitutes a mild public-health problem among the school children in Driouche (North East of Morocco). High socioeconomic and good environmental conditions were the most important factors associated with the lower prevalence of malnutrition.

Keywords: Nutritional status, wasting, stunting, body mass index (BMI), school children, Morocco