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Effects And Determinants Of Mild Underweight Among Preschool Children Across Countries And Over Time

Author

Listed:
  • Priya Bhagowalia

    (Dept of Economics, TERI University, New Delhi, India)

  • Susan E. Chen
  • William A. Masters

    (Purdue University,Dept. of Agricultural Economics)

Abstract

Research on malnutrition typically focuses on severe cases, where anthropometric status falls below or above an extreme threshold. Such categorization is necessary for clinicians since mild cases may not justify intervention, but researchers could find that changes in mild malnutrition convey valuable information about mortality risk and health status. This paper focuses on changes in both mild and severe underweight in young children, as measured by 130 DHS surveys for 53 countries over a period from 1986 to 2007. We find that counting variance in all forms of underweight provides closer correlations with aggregate health outcomes (the underfive child mortality rate), and is more closely correlated to several influences of malnutrition (national income, gender equality and agricultural output). We conclude that the full distribution of nutritional status deserves greater attention, including in this case the prevalence of mild underweight among preschool children in developing countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Priya Bhagowalia & Susan E. Chen & William A. Masters, 2009. "Effects And Determinants Of Mild Underweight Among Preschool Children Across Countries And Over Time," Working Papers 09-13, Purdue University, College of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:pae:wpaper:09-13
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    Cited by:

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    2. Millimet, Daniel L. & Tchernis, Rusty, 2015. "Persistence in body mass index in a recent cohort of US children," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 157-176.
    3. Paul Christian & Brian Dillon, 2018. "Growing and Learning When Consumption Is Seasonal: Long-Term Evidence From Tanzania," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(3), pages 1091-1118, June.
    4. Gross, Jeremie & Guirkinger, Catherine & Platteau, Jean-Philippe, 2020. "Buy as you need: Nutrition and food storage imperfections," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    5. Milinda Lakkam & Stefan Wager & Paul H Wise & Lawrence M Wein, 2014. "Quantifying and Exploiting the Age Dependence in the Effect of Supplementary Food for Child Undernutrition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(6), pages 1-10, June.
    6. Marisol Garzón & Luís Pereira-da-Silva & Jorge Seixas & Ana Luísa Papoila & Marta Alves, 2018. "Subclinical Enteric Parasitic Infections and Growth Faltering in Infants in São Tomé, Africa: A Birth Cohort Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-16, April.
    7. Yongqing Dong & Quheng Deng & Shaoping Li, 2022. "The Health Inequality of Children in China: A Regression-Based Decomposition Analysis," Child Indicators Research, Springer;The International Society of Child Indicators (ISCI), vol. 15(1), pages 137-159, February.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Underweight; weight-for-height; wasting; child mortality; FGT measures; DHS data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy

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