Peer-reviewed article
High double burden of child stunting and maternal overweight in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
Jessica L. Blankenship, Stanley Gwavuya, Uma Palaniappan, Julia Alfred, Frederick deBrum et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study uses data from the 2017 National Integrated Child Health and Nutrition Survey in the Marshall Islands. It looks at how often a mother is overweight while her child is stunted, which the authors call the mother-child double burden. Nearly three in four mothers were overweight or obese, and about one in four households had an overweight mother with a stunted child. Stunting and the double burden were linked to maternal characteristics and to household wealth and size.
Key points
- Nearly three out of four mothers were overweight or obese.
- One in four households had an overweight mother with a stunted child.
- Child stunting and the mother-child double burden were associated with lower maternal height, maternal age at birth, years of education and marital status.
- Household wealth index and number of household members were also associated with stunting and the double burden.
- The authors link the double burden to early life undernutrition made worse by the nutrition transition.
Limitations
The abstract describes a cross-sectional survey analysis, so it shows associations and cannot show cause and effect. Details such as sample size, effect sizes and the age range of children are not given in the abstract.
Abstract
AbstractMany low‐ and middle‐income countries are faced with a double burden of malnutrition characterized by a stagnating burden of undernutrition and an increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity often observed both at population and household levels. We used data from the 2017 National Integrated Child Health and Nutrition Survey in the Republic of the Marshall Islands to explore the prevalence of overweight mother‐stunted child pairs (mother–child double burden, MCDB). We used bivariate analysis, multivariate logistic regression, and multinomial logistic regression analysis to explore associations between child‐, maternal‐, and household‐level variables and both stunting and MCDB and other types of maternal–child pairs. Our results indicate that nearly three out of four mothers were overweight or obese and one in four households is home to an overweight mother with a stunted child. The risk of child stunting and of MCDB were largely associated with maternal characteristics of lower maternal height, maternal age at birth, years of education, and marital status and household economic status as measured by wealth index and number of household members. These findings support the growing body of evidence showing that the coexistence of high maternal overweight and child stunting (MCDB) has linked root causes to early life undernutrition that are exacerbated by the nutrition transition.