Development of a prevention strategy for child malnutrition based on standardized assessment through anthropometry and bioimpedance methods

Abstract

Introduction: The weight increase has occurred in recent decades at an increasing rate affecting individuals without distinction of sex, ethnicity, age or socioeconomic status; Overweight and obesity are defined as an excessive increase in body adiposity, which in turn is related to a broad spectrum of chronic non-communicable diseases that generate a great burden on health systems. Objective: To develop a prevention strategy for child malnutrition based on standardized assessment through anthropometry and bioimpedance methods. Methods: a descriptive, prospective and longitudinal research is developed, based on a theoretical systematization of nutritional processes in the infant age group. Results: It is necessary to have early diagnosis instruments that present a low technical complexity and reduced cost to evaluate populations with higher risk factors, thus reducing the progression of the disease and the establishment of complications, specifically in children, the body mass index is an instrument that presents limitations to evaluate the percentage of body fat, By complementing the evaluation of body composition by electrical impedance, it supplements these, improving its diagnostic capabilities. Conclusions: The strategy of prevention of overweight and obesity designed, based on the analysis of body composition by electrical impedance in school-age children, taking into account that this diagnostic method allows to know the components of the human body and express it in percentages, in the same way it is possible to locate children with excess adiposity even when the body mass index determines a state of normality in the subjects evaluated.