AUTHOR=Shamah-Levy Teresa , Cuevas-Nasu Lucia , Romero-Martínez Martín , Gómez-Humaran Ignacio Méndez , Ávila-Arcos Marco Antonio , Rivera Juan A. 

TITLE=Nutrition Status of Children, Teenagers, and Adults From National Health and Nutrition Surveys in Mexico From 2006 to 2020

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Nutrition

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2021

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/nutrition/articles/10.3389/fnut.2021.777246

DOI=10.3389/fnut.2021.777246

ISSN=2296-861X

ABSTRACT=<p><bold>Background:</bold> Population-level health and nutrition surveys provide critical anthropometric data used to monitor trends of the prevalence of under nutrition and overweight in children under 5 years old, and overweight and obesity in the population over 5 years of age.</p><p><bold>Objective:</bold> Analyze the children malnutrition and overweight and obesity in children, teenagers and adults through the National Health and Nutrition Surveys information available from public databases.</p><p><bold>Materials and Methods:</bold> Comparable anthropometric data was gathered by five Mexican National Health and Nutrition Surveys (in Spanish, ENSANUT). In pre-school-age children, under nutrition status was identified through underweight (Z-score below −2 in weight-for-age), stunting (chronic malnutrition) (Z-score below −2 for length/height-for-age), or wasting (Z-score below −2, for weight-for-length/height); overweight status was defined as a body mass index (BMI, kg/m<sup>2</sup>) for age over +2. For school-age children and adolescents, a Z-score BMI between +1 and +2 deviations was defined as overweight, and between +2 and +5.5 as obesity. In adults (≥20 years of age), overweight status was classified as a BMI between 25.0 and 29.9, and obesity as ≥30.</p><p><bold>Results:</bold> The anthropometric data presented derives from the databases of five survey years of the Mexican National Health and Nutrition Survey: 2006, 2012, 2016, 2018, and 2020. They include a total of 210,915 subjects with complete anthropometric data (weight, length/height) distributed on five survey moments; subjects were categorized by age group: pre-school-age children (<italic>n</italic> = 25,968), school-age children (<italic>n</italic> = 42,255), adolescents (<italic>n</italic> = 39,275), and adults (<italic>n</italic> = 103,417). Prevalence of malnutrition by indicator was calculated: in pre-school-age children: low height- and weight-for-age, low weight-for-height, and overweight; and in school-age children, adolescents, and adults, the indicators calculated were overweight and obesity.</p><p><bold>Conclusions:</bold> Results demonstrate the importance of maintaining systematic, reliable, and timely national anthropometric data in the population, in order to detect and track trends and to form the basis of nutrition-related public policy.</p>