NUTRITIONAL DIAGNOSIS OF CHILDREN BETWEEN 3 AND 5 YEARS OLD THAT ATTEND THE KINDERGARTEN LA GOTITA IN PUERTO MONTT DURING THE FIRST SEMESTER OF 2006 IN VALDIVIA, CHILI.

Abstract

Infantile obesity is an important problem of public health whose prevention measures should start in the early stages of life, where parents should be involved. If parents are not able to detect overweight or obesity in their own children, measures carried out to prevent the infantile obesity will be hardly successful. Te aim of the present quantitative, cross-section, and descriptive investigation, not experimental, was to determine the nutritional state of children that attend the Kindergarten La Gotita, in Puerto Montt, during the first semester of 2006, regarding age, gender, weight and size. The studied population, after having applied exclusion criteria, was constituted by 107 children, of which 56% were men and the remaining 44% were women. According to nutritional state, by age, children in risk of undernourished were 8% and it decreased to 0% at the age of 5. Within this group of children in risk of undernourished, none of them presented size deficit. Additionally, the children with overweight dropped from 14% in March to 9% in July, obese children also dropped from 10% in March to 9% in July. Overweight was observed in all ages in both genders and a deficit in children of 3 and 4 years old in both genders. The proportion of obese women was higher than in men in every month of the study and at all ages. Less than half (20%) of obese children’s parents did not presented chronic illnesses no-communicable, risk factors, considered inside the norm of outpatient handling with overweight due to undernourishment. Therefore, it is extremely important while evaluating an obese child. The children of this study, at all ages and in both genders have high percentages of overweight and obesity. Less than half (7.4%) that is managed at national level, thus it becomes necessary to adopt preventive measures from an early age such as, motivating mothers to maintain their children controlling their health constantly during the previous preschool years, developing specific educational programs about appropriate feeding for each age, promoting healthy habits, and avoiding little physical activity, since those factors may lead to complications in the adulthood.