Poor diet links obese mothers and stunted children

Malnutrition is a major cause of stunted growth in children, but new UCL research on mothers and children in Egypt suggests that the problem is not just about quantity of food but also quality. Obesity and malnutrition are often thought of as problems at opposite ends of the nutrition spectrum, but the study found that 6.7% of Egyptian mothers were obese and had stunted children. In these 'double-burden' households with obese mothers and stunted children, malnutrition is unlikely to be down to scarcity of food. The study, published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal, found that children who were fed chocolate, biscuits or sweets were 51% more likely to belong to a double-burden household, whereas children who were fed fruit and vegetables were 24% less likely to be in this category. Researchers used data including weight and height from 25,065 mothers and their children from the Egyptian Demographic and Health Surveys in 1992, 1995, 2005 and 2008. Information on the food given to children was provided by 5,357 mothers and their children in the 2008 survey. "Malnutrition is not only a question of not having enough food, it is also about not having good enough food," says Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi (UCL Epidemiology & Public Health), lead author of the study.