NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF CHILDREN UNDER 5 YEARS IN TWO VULNERABLE TERRITORIES IN CALI - COLOMBIA

Background and objectives: Introduction: child nutrition is fundamental for physical, cognitive, emotional and social development. The relevance of nutritional status lies on the fact that it is a direct reflection of a country's progress and inequalities. Objectives: definition of the nutritional status of children under 5 years in two vulnerable territories in Cali - Colombia. Methods: prevalence study using cluster randomized sampling. Univariates analysis was performed taking into account de variable nature and distribution. For the qualitative variables frequencies, central tendency and dispersion were estimated. ANTRO software of the WHO was used for child growth standards. The variables used were BMI/age, length/age and weight/length. Results: for the variable BMI/age; 12% of the patients were obese, 18% overweight, 8% underweight and 11% in underweight risk. In gender terms boys were predominantly overweight and girls underweight with statistical significance. For the variable length/age; 23% presented short size and 27% were in risk. Boys were more affected but girls were more at risk. For the variable weight/length; 11.9% were obese, 15.7% overweight, 12.6% low weight for length and 7.8% very low weight for length. Excess was more frequent in boys and low weight in girls. Conclusion: in two vulnerable territories in Cali - Colombia one out of two children presents an inadequacy in nutritional status, this implies that is mandatory to create interventions for children under 5 years that prevent adverse consequences in the future.