Abstract
As in many developing countries, stunting is a public health problem in Burkina Faso. More than one in four children does not reach his or her growth potential. In addition, all nutrition surveys conducted in the country reveal that boys are more affected. This stunting gender bias is supported by the Trivers-Willard theory that there is a natural discriminating investment in reproduction according to sex through sociodemographic characteristics, behaviour and biology. The present study is intended to investigate the role of food quality in the occurrence of this phenomenon.
 This cross-sectional and explanatory study of children under five years of age is based on data from Burkina Faso’s latest 2010 Demographic and Health Survey. Analyses were carried out on only the subsample of 6994 under-five year old children on which the anthropometric measures were taken. The assessment of child growth is based on the anthropometric index height-for-age z-score and the food quality assessment is based on the joint WHO/Unicef standard. The explanatory model used to examine the effect of the food quality is based on logistic regression.
 The prevalence of balanced diets among the children was 7.2% and there was no gender difference. On the other hand, stunting prevalence was significantly higher for boys (37.7% versus 32.6%). Children who were subjected to suboptimal feeding practices had three times more adjusted risk of stunting for both sexes. In addition, poor feeding practices led to a significantly higher growth deficit in boys compared to girls. However, when the diet was adequate, this risk gap dwindled. The higher prevalence of stunting of boys in the absence of food discrimination led us to single out behaviour and biology effects as the likely explanatory variables. Girls' natural resilience to certain infections and nutritional deficiencies could explain this difference in risk.
 Improved under-five year old child feeding practices contribute to improving overall growth stature and contribute also to bridging the gender gap in stunting.
Highlights
Child stunting is a public health problem in Burkina Faso
Biological factors encompass the child's birth size, diarrhoea in the last two weeks preceding the interview and the birth interval. These include the mother's body mass index, which is the ratio of weight to square height that determines the nutritional status defined into three categories ((Malnourished (25)), age, height of mother and her pregnancy status
7.2% of children were adequately fed. It appears that boys were more often Exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) than girls (27.6% vs. 20.7%)
Summary
Stunting prevalence decreased from 35.1% in 2009 to 29.1% in 2014 (DN et Unicef 2009)(DN et Unicef 2014). Despite the decline, these levels are high according to WHO (OMS 1995). It is imperative to combat this form of malnutrition because of its harmful consequences. These potential impacts are multiple and varied from cognitive developmental retardation, poor academic performance, anxiety, depression, impaired self-esteem, antisocial behaviours, impulsivity, hyperactivity to decreased attention (Caulfield et al 2006)(Susan P. Walker et al 2007)(Chang et al 2002)(S. P. Walker et al 2011). A 10% increase in GNP is associated with a reduction in the prevalence of stunting of 0.7 to 2.2 points (Heltberg 2009)(Bershteyn et al 2015)
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