Determining Cut-Off Points of Malnutrition of Indian Children: An Analysis by Developing New Growth Curves of Children’s Nutritional Status for India Using Cross Sectional Data

Rachana Patel, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)
Sayeed Unisa, International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)

New growth curves has been developed for Indian reference as socio-cultural, geographical and others factors affect the physical structure of human. In three rounds of NFHS data, height and weight are collected and we have used this to develop growth curve. This will help us in identifying malnourished children with Indian standards. Children from pooled data of NFHS three rounds are selected for standard reference population from the highest wealth quintal after adjusting factors influencing the nutritional status of children. The Box-Cox-power exponential distribution is used for fitting where weight showed a good fit at all ages after birth as compared to height. Compared with the WHO standard, new growth curves have both lower birth weights and lower birth height. After age 12 months, the risk of being classified as underweighted are higher and after age 6 months, stunted is considerably higher according to the WHO standard compared to new growth curves.