- Name
- Prevalence of malnutrition (weight for height >+2 or <-2 standard deviation from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards) among children under 5, disaggregated by type (wasting and overweight)
- Indicator purpose
- The purpose of this indicator is to track changes in the proportion of children who are malnourished (which encompasses both undernutrition and overweight).
- Abstract
- This indicator shows the prevalence of overweight (weight for height >+2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age. Child growth is an internationally accepted outcome area reflecting child nutritional status. Child overweight refers to a child who is too heavy for his or her height. This form of malnutrition results from expending too few calories for the amount of food consumed and increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases later in life. Child overweight is one of the World Health Assembly nutrition target indicators.
- Contact organization / person
- Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)
- Unit of measure
- Estimates
- Other characteristics
- The official MDG indicator is overweight as assessed using weight for height. Overweight can however also be assessed with other indicators such body mass index for age. BMI is considered in absence of any other available estimates.
- Classification used
- Overweight: Prevalence of overweight (weight for height >+2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age.
Numerator: Number of under-fives above 2 standard deviations from the median weight-for-height of the reference population
Denominator: Children under 5 years of age in the surveyed population
Wasting: Prevalence of wasting (weight for height <-2 standard deviation from the median of the WHO Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age.
Numerator: Number of under-fives falling below minus 2 standard deviations (moderate and severe) and minus 3 standard deviations (severe) from the median weight-for-height of the reference population
Denominator: Children under 5 years of age in the surveyed population
- Disaggregation
- This indicator is disaggregated by type (wasting and overweight) and by sex, age groups.
- Key statistical concepts
- Survey estimates are based on standardized methodology using the WHO Child Growth Standards.
- Recommended uses
- Prevalence of malnutrition and risk of malnutrition should be measured and documented, and the results widely disseminated to the public by the associated line ministries and related organizations.
- Other comments
- Prevalence of malnutrition among children under 5 is estimated by comparing actual measurements to an international standard reference population. Since their release in April 2006, the WHO Child Growth Standards have been the recommended standard, replacing the previously used National Centre for Health Statistics (NCHS)/WHO reference population.
All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.
- Baseline
- Overweight 7.3 (2015)
Wasting 1.8 (2015)
- Target 2020
- Prevalence of malnutrition cut by 10%
- Target 2030
- Prevalence of malnutrition cut by 30%
