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Prevalence and severity of malnutrition and age at menarche; cross-sectional studies in adolescent schoolgirls in western Kenya

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 59, pages 41–48 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Objective: Nutritional status is an important marker of overall health and linear growth retardation has serious long-term physiological and economic consequences. Approximately 35 and 29% of preschool children in sub-Saharan Africa are stunted and underweight, respectively. There is relatively little information available about the nutritional status in adolescents, the age group with the highest growth velocity after infancy. We conducted a series of cross-sectional surveys to determine the prevalence and main risk groups for malnutrition and to describe the associations between age, sexual maturation and nutritional status in adolescent schoolgirls in western Kenya.

Design: Three cross-sectional surveys; one in Mumias, using random sampling in all schools, and two surveys in Asembo, using a multi-stage random sample design.

Setting: Public primary schools in two different rural malaria endemic areas in western Kenya with high levels of malnutrition in preschool children.

Subjects: In all, 928 randomly selected adolescent schoolgirls aged 12–18 y.

Results: Overall prevalence of stunting and thinness was 12.1 and 15.6%, respectively. Of the total, 2% were severely stunted. Menarche and start of puberty were delayed by approximately 1.5–2 y compared to a US reference population. The prevalence of stunting and thinness decreased with age and mean height for age z-scores converged towards the median of the US reference curve. Girls who had not yet started menstruating were more likely to be stunted than the girls of the same age who were post-menarche.

Conclusions: Stunting and thinness are common in young adolescent schoolgirls in these poor rural settings in western Kenya, but the prevalence decreases with age, providing observational support that children catch up on incomplete growth attained earlier in life due to a maturational delay of 1.5–2 y allowing prolonged growth.

Sponsorship: This study was supported by a grant from The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), the Netherlands.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the schoolgirls, parents and teachers who participated in the study. We thank the staff from KEMRI and St Mary's Hospital who assisted with this project. We are grateful to Dr Jennifer Friedman, International Health Institute, Brown University, for reviewing this manuscript. We thank the Director of the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) for his permission to publish this work. This study was supported by a grant from The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO), the Netherlands).

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Author notes

  1. F O ter Kuile

    Present address: Child and Reproductive Health Group, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, UK

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kenya Medical Research Institute, Centre for Vector Biology and Control Research, Kisumu, Kenya

    T Leenstra, S K Kariuki, A J Oloo & F O ter Kuile

  2. Department of Infectious Diseases, Tropical Medicine & AIDS, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    T Leenstra, P A Kager & F O ter Kuile

  3. St Mary's Hospital, Mumias, Kenya

    L T Petersen

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Correspondence to T Leenstra.

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Guarantors: T Leenstra and FO ter Kuile.

Contributors: FO ter K, TL and PAK were responsible for the study design. SKK was responsible for the laboratory work. TL, LP, FO ter K and AJO were responsible for the data collection. TL and FO ter K were responsible for the data analysis and writing of the manuscript, with contributions from all other authors.

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Leenstra, T., Petersen, L., Kariuki, S. et al. Prevalence and severity of malnutrition and age at menarche; cross-sectional studies in adolescent schoolgirls in western Kenya. Eur J Clin Nutr 59, 41–48 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602031

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