Organised By
Organised By
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Serdang Selangor, Malaysia.
bnisak@medic.upm.edu.my
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Growth status is a relevant indicator for a toddler to assess nutritional status, health and well-being. Growth status data in clinical setting is scarce. Undernourished toddlers are always associated with medical background and inadequate dietary intake. Parental feeding practice such as pressure to eat is correlated with lower body mass index in children. This study determines the factors related to growth status in toddlers.
METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study was conducted in paediatric clinic Hospital Serdang participated by 95 toddlers and their parents. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by a dominant parent. Parental feeding practices were assessed using Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ). Researcher assessed the dietary intake of the child by using 2-day 24-hour diet recall. Height and weight of the toddlers were measured. WHO Growth Chart Standard 2006 used to classify weight-for-age (WAZ), height-for-age (HAZ) and BMI-for-age (BMI-Z).
RESULTS: Underweight and stunting observed in 23.1% and 25.3% of the toddlers. About 9.5% and 3.2% were wasted and overweight respectively. WAZ was negatively related to breastfeeding duration (r = 0.247, p=0.016). HAZ was positively correlated with birth weight (r = 0.205, p=0.046) but negatively related to breastfeeding duration (r = 0.316, p=0.002). BMI-Z was negatively related to child control (r = 0.222, p=0.031) and encourage balance and variety (r = 0.219, p=0.033) feeding practices but positively correlated with dietary calcium (r = 0.213, p=0.040).
CONCLUSION: Birth weight, breastfeeding duration, dietary calcium intake, child control and encourage feeding practices were significantly related to growth status.
Keywords – Toddlers, growth status