Research On The Nutritional Problems And Its Influencing Factors Of The Children Under Five In China

Objectives:This study summarizes the nutritional status and its influencing factors of children under five years old (0-59.9months), the deficiencies of child nutrition policies and measures in our country; and then sums up the successful experience of policy measures of some international organizations and countries. Some targeted interventions and policy recommendations are proposed which aims at improving the overall level of the nutritional status of children.Contents:A framework of researching and analyzing was built which towards the issues about children; the analysis indicators of children nutritional status under five years old were summed and setted up; the nutritional status, regional differences, the influencing factors of the nutritional status were analyzed, and child nutrition relegating policies and measures in our country were summarized; child nutrition problems and relevent measures in other countries were summarized; some policy recommendations for improving child nutrition were proposed.Methods:In this study, literature research method was used to summarize the nutritional status analysis indicators of children under five, builds a research framework, and sets up the nutritional status analysis indicators of children under five in our country. The article also statistical analysis to analyz the nutritional status of children under five years old by the2002-2011decade survey data, and summarizes the child nutrition policies and measures at home and abroad. Experts’ advices about the recommendations of improvement measures and the analysis of nutrition issue and influencing factors are also important to this article. At last, Meta-analysis was used to analyz the key factors of major nutritional problems affecting our children.Results:1. An analytical framework of the nutritional status and influencing factors of children was developed, which consists four parts:social factors in macro-level, family factors in the mid-level, personal factors in the micro-level, and child nutritional problems.2. This study summarizes the existing evaluation of nutritional status of children of domestic and international, and then selects height, weight, malnutrition and other indicators, by the dimensions of growth status and nutritional diseases, for evaluating nutritional status of children under five.3. The nutritional status of children in China is gradually improved, but it’s still facing malnutrition, obesity, lacking of micronutrients and other nutritional problems. The gap between urban and rural areas is still wide as well as different regions. The rate of malnourish of rural children is higher than city children and the rate of obesity, vitamin D deficiency disease of rural children is lower than city children. Child under two is more likely to get the disease of micronutrient deficiency.4. The impact of social policies and factors, household income and other family factors play an important role in children’s health. Disease, genetic and other personal factors have a direct impact on the nutritional status of infants. Factors such as place of residence, low birth weight, age and gender have statistically significant on malnutrition.5. There exists nutritional policies and measures already in China, such as the Nutrition Strategy for infant and young child, child nutrition monitoring and investigation system, initiative Baby Friendly Hospital.6. Childhood obesity is a serious problem of United States, Australia and other developed countries, and child malnutrition still exists. Policies and improvement measures has been established, such as emphasis on child nutrition legislation, the establishment of children’s nutrition improvement special funds, and implement targeted interventions.Nepal, India and other developing countries are facing to a serious problem of child malnutrition. Building multi-sector cooperation, clearing the corresponding mission objectives of the various departments is the successful experience to improve the nutritional status of children.Conclusions:1. Children under five are facing multiple nutritional problems in China, and the differences between urban and rural are significant.2. The factors impacting onnutrition of child under5are complex, and more targeted analysis on thses issues need to be carried out.3. There is still a wide gap of nutritional status of children between China and the developed conutries. In order to enhancing the level of child nutrition in our country, international experiences need to be drew on.4. Nutrition-related research on children under five years old is still insufficient so we need to carry out more in-depth studies.Suggestions:1. The policies should be ameliorated to improve the living environment of children.2. Effective interventions should be implemented to the area where problems are prominent.3. Multi-sector cooperation should be strengthened in order to cope with the multi-level health hazard.4. The local economy should be developed, to decrease the gap between urban and rural areas.5. Health education should be strengthened, to populiz child nutrition knowledge.6. Child nutrition monitoring system should be improved to provide reliable data.7. More child nutrition research should be launched.