Intraindividual Double Burden of Malnutrition in Chinese Children and Adolescents Aged 6–17 Years: Evidence from the China Health and Nutrition Survey 2015

Abstract

Studies on the intraindividual double burden of malnutrition (DBM) among Chinese children and adolescents were lacking. This study aimed to analyze the prevalence of intraindividual DBM defined as the coexistence of overweight/obesity and dietary micronutrient intake insufficiency and investigate dietary micronutrient intake in Chinese children and adolescents. Using data from the 2015 China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), 1555 children and adolescents aged 6 to 17 years were selected as the subjects. We referred to China Food Composition to calculate the intakes of 11 selected dietary micronutrients from diet data collected by consecutive three days of 24 h recalls combined with household weighing of seasonings. We used the Chinese estimated average requirement (EARs) as a cutoff to define the dietary micronutrients deficiency, and applied the body-mass-index-for-age Z-scores (BAZ) of World Health Organization (WHO) child growth standards to define the category of body weight. Among the subjects in present study, the prevalence of overweight and obesity was 15.43% and 11.06%, respectively, and 26.24% of the subjects had undergone intraindividual DBM. The results suggest that the prevalence of intraindividual DBM and dietary micronutrients deficiency in Chinese children and adolescents is high.