Alarming growth delay in children

These results are part of the project Survey on size and weight, performed by the Ministry of District Education (SED, for its acronym in Spanish) through the Direction of Students" Welfare, and supported by the Observatory of Food and Nutritional Security (OBSAN, for its acronym in Spanish) from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. This study was performed on 48,000 children that have just started primary school, with the purpose of building a data base to know the nutritional situation of children at school and its relation to their development.

According to Patricia Heredia Vargas, an epidemiologist nutritionist of OBSAN, the study showed that male children, different from female children, are suffering more growth and alimentation problems, since it was proved that 10.7% of male children and 8,2 of female children have a short stature for their age. "It is expected that these results provide elements to perform evaluations of the reasons why male children are the most affected," asserted Vargas.

In this sense, the compilation of data produced in the district, and in the different localities, schools, branches and courses, will be used to evaluate the School Alimentation program that provides snacks to 685,000 school students and food to over 165,000.

According to Claudia León Velasco, a nutritionist of the School Alimentation program of SED, this study will be used as a tool "for the program to improve and make decisions regarding the food support that the program is giving to the district."

Other result indicated that indigenous children have a bigger percentage of growth deficiency since their communities have the highest poor rates in the country.

It is expected that this Survey on size and weight can be performed each year to all primary school children, in different stages, since children at the age of 9 start growing at a faster pace.

SED will use these results for helping children in the district to develop healthy alimentation habits.