School children 6 to 12 years old, from a low-income rural community in Paraná, Brazil, had their weight, height, triceps skinfold and arm circumference measured at school. Of a total of 168 children, 138 had blood collected to measure hemoglobin, hematocrit, and serum ferritin. Children's food consumption was estimated based on the food intake at school and mothers' recall of the children's intake based on one 24-hour recall. Compared to the NCHS (National Center of Health and Statistics) distribution, 53% of the studied children had height values lower than the 10th percentile, whereas only 2.3 % had values below the 10th percentile of the weight-for-height distribution, showing that stunting is the most prevalent nutritional deficit in these school aged children. Anemia defined as a hemoglobin value lower than 11.5 g/dl was found in 25.7 % of the children. Forty-two percent of the children had serum ferritin values lower than 16 ug/l indicating that anemia was due to iron deficiency. There was a tendency for a greater prevalence of anemia among those children with low weight-for-age, low height-for-age and small triceps skinfold but no significant association was found. Values of hemoglobin correlated positively with weight, height, weight-for-height, and arm circumference (all p-value <0.03). Weight-for-height was also highly correlated with triceps skinfold (0.44; p-value 0.0001). Energy intake was low, with a daily median intake of about 1,100 kcal, for both sexes. The RDA for energy, iron, and vitamin C was reached only at the 75 percentile of the population intake distribution. In conclusion, Brazilian school children from a low-income rural community were at high risk for stunting with high weight-for-height and anemia, but there was no association between the anthropometric indicators and anemia. Also, stunted children may be at high risk of obesity, even at low caloric intake, as suggested by the strong association between weight-for-height and skinfold thickness.