The double burden of malnutrition in Vietnamese school-aged children and adolescents: a rapid shift over a decade in Ho Chi Minh City.

Background/objectives: Vietnam is undergoing a nutrition transition, which is leading to marked shifts in body size at the population level, but up-to-date data are lacking. We therefore quantified the prevalence of undernutrition (stunting and thinness) and overnutrition (overweight, obesity, and abdominal obesity) in school-aged children in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMc), Vietnam, and compared this with previous estimates.

Subjects/methods: A cross-sectional survey of 10,949 children (6-18 years old) from 30 schools in HCMc, Vietnam in 2014-2015 was used to ascertain the nutritional status of children and adolescents.