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The purpose of this indicator is to track changes in the proportion of children who are malnourished (which encompasses both undernutrition and overweight) and stunted. 

Child growth is an internationally accepted outcome reflecting child nutritional status.

Child stunting refers to a child who is too short for his or her age and is the result of chronic or recurrent malnutrition. Stunting is a contributing risk factor to child mortality and is also a marker of inequalities in human development. Stunted children fail to reach their physical and cognitive potential. Child stunting is one of the World Health Assembly nutrition target indicators.

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.

Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS)

Statistical Institute of Belize (SIB)

Annual

Survey Estimates

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. 

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

Stunting is the impaired growth and development that children experience from poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Children are defined as stunted if their height-for-age is more than two standard deviations below the WHO Child Growth Standards median. Linear growth in early childhood is a strong marker of healthy growth given its association with morbidity and mortality risk, non-communicable diseases in later life, and learning capacity and productivity. It is also closely linked with child development in several domains including cognitive, language and sensory-motor capacities.

is by type (wasting, overweight, stunting).

is by sex, age groups. 

Survey estimates are based on standardized methodology using the WHO Child Growth Standards.

Prevalence of malnutrition, risk of malnutrition and prevalence of stunting should be measured and documented, and the results widely disseminated to the public by the associated line ministries and related organizations. 

Survey estimates come with levels of uncertainty due to both sampling error and non-sampling error.

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/.