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Weight- and height-for-age as proxies for calorie adequacy among high-risk pre-schoolers

Tables 6-9 address question 2. They present results of comparisons between anthropometric measures of pre-schoolers and their calorie adequacy or the calorie adequacy of their households. As table 6 shows, targeting households with 60 per cent calorie adequacy or lower (41 per cent of households) would capture one-half of the pre-schoolers whose weight-forheight was 60 per cent or less of standard and 37 per cent of those whose weight-for-height was 61-75 per cent of standard. But 33 per cent of the pre-schoolers who showed no sign of malnutrition (over 90 per cent of weight-for-height standard) would also be covered. Thus, the targeting efficiency is low (table 6). If calorie adequacy of pre-schoolers is used instead of household adequacy, as shown in table 7, two-thirds of the pre-schoolers with third-degree and 54 per cent with second-degree malnutrition would be covered. However, 52 per cent of all households would fall into the target group (table 7), as compared to 40 per cent (table 6) when targeting is based on household adequacy. Furthermore, 46 per cent of the preschoolers showing no sign of malnutrition would be included in the target group. In this case, the targeting efficiency is even lower. If, on the other hand, targeting is based on the weight-for-age of preschoolers (table 7), and households with pre-schoolers whose weight-for-age is less than 75 per cent of standard are defined as the target group (27 per cent of all households), 28 per cent of the pre-schoolers with a calorie adequacy of 60 per cent or below will be covered, along with the same percentage of those with calorie adequacy of between 60 and 75 per cent. But 22 per cent of the pre-schoolers with calorie adequacy levels above 75 per cent will also be included in the target group.

Table 6. Relationship between weight-for-age of pre-schoolers and household calorie adequacy

Source: IFPRI/National Nutrition Council Survey in Abra, Antique, and South Cotabato, the Philippines, 1983.

Table 7. Relationship between weight-for-age and calorie adequacy of pre-schoolers

Source: IFPRI/National Nutrition Council Survey in Abra, Antique, and South Cotabato, the Philippines, 1983.

Table 8. Relationship between weight-for-height of pre-schoolers and household calorie adequacy

Source: IFPRI/National Nutntion Council Survey in Abra, Antique, and South Cotabato, the Philippines, 1983.

Table 9. Relationship between weight-for-height and calorie adequacy for pre-schoolers

Source: IFPRI/National Nutrition Council Survey in Abra, Antique, and South Cotabato, the Philippines, 1983.

The weight-for-height of about one-third (31.8 per cent) of the sample pre-schoolers was 90 per cent of standard or below. Forty-four per cent of these would be covered by a programme targeting households with 60 per cent or lower calorie adequacy. However, 39 per cent of the children with weight-for-height above 90 per cent of standard would also be covered (table 8). Targeting households with children weighing 90 per cent or less of standard for their height would cover about 34 per cent of all households and also 32 per cent of pre-schoolers with calorie adequacy of 60 per cent or less (table 9).

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