Nutritional status of children under the age five in Morocco

Full text: Introduction: In Morocco we live nutritional, demographic and epidemiological transition. These transitions affect the nutritional status of the population, especially that of children under five years of age. They also play a guiding role in the development of strategies to be implemented to improve the situation. Aim: To describe the evolution of the nutritional status of children under five years in Morocco over the past ten years. Methods: Two national surveys were conducted in 2004 and 2011. One of the objectives of these surveys is to assess the nutritional status of children aged less than five years compared to WHO standards. Results: The surveys that included 5737 children under 5 years in 2004 and 7271 in 2011 showed according to WHO standards, at the national level , a prevalence of underweight of 3.1 % ( weight / age <- 2SD) in 2011, compared to 10.7 % in 2004. At the national level in 2011, 14.9 % of children under 5 suffer from stunting ( height / age <-2 SD), this proportion was 23.7 % in 2004, acute malnutrition affects 2.3 % of children under five in 2011 against 12.7% in 2004, the proportion of children who are overweight and obese is 12. 5% (BMI for age > 2 SD) 2.6 % of which are obese (BMI for age > 3 SD), whereas the proportion of children with overweight and obesity was 10.4 % in 2004. Discussion/conclusions: These studies show that acute malnutrition almost disappeared in Morocco, however prevalence of stunting remains high, overweight and obesity among children less than five years increased in the country. (author)