Regional study of nutritional status of urban primary schoolchildren. 1. Manila, Philippines.

This multicity study sought to provide baseline information on the nutritional status of urban schoolchildren in order to examine the emerging problem of overweight and obesity in this age group. The study included 1,208 children 8 to 10 years old who were randomly selected from all public and private schools in Manila for weight and height measurements. Nutritional status was assessed by weight-for-age and height-for-age Z scores and BMI percentile cutoff points. On the average, private schoolchildren were taller and heavier and had higher body mass index (BMI) values than public schoolchildren, resulting in a much lower prevalence of undernutrition and a much higher prevalence of overnutrition. These results have important programmatic implications. However, using the World Health Organization (WHO)--recommended cutoff points to define under- and overnutrition gave contrasting results when weight-for-height and BMI were used. There appears to be a need to validate the anthropometric reference standards and cutoff points in children and adolescents to better define nutritional status and ascertain the influence of ethnicity.