DO THI LE CHI
A STUDY ON MALNUTRITION STATUS AT A REMOTE AREA IN MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM
Malnutrition is a problem which has been existing in many developing countries and in Vietnam. The Mekong Delta, an area that has been known as Vietnam's rice bowl has a high percentage of malnourished children. For the time being, malnutrition has affected up to 46.86% of children under five.
The purpose of this study was to determine the main causes of malnutrition in Vi Thanh district in order to lessen the malnutrition status in the Mekong Delta.
This cross-sectional study was conducted at two communes, in which 200 households (100 each) with children under five were randomly selected as samples of the study.
This study found significant association between malnutrition and age of the children or age of the mothers. In addition there was an association between malnutrition and birth weight (p=0.045); also malnutrition and starting breast feeding (p=0.006) and supplementary food (0.04).
No statistical relationship was seen between malnutrition and socio-economic factors such as occupation of mothers, income, child spacing and number of children in the family.
The recommendations which were drawn from these research results were that:
- It was essential to provide adequate supplementary food for children from two to four and for pregnant women and supply the health facilities with scales.
- Educating women of the beneficial effects of a growth monitoring programme.
- Implementing the supplementary nutrition programme in the communes that the programme has not covered.
