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Neck circumference as a marker of malnutrition among children attending the under five clinic of a tertiary care hospital in Nagpur, Maharashtra

Introduction: India is facing a dual burden of overweight/obesity and under nutrition among children less than 5 years of age. Neck circumference is recently studied marker for malnutrition among adults and older children. Objective: To correlate neck circumference with body mass index and to associate it with wasting and underweight status. Material & Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted among children less than 5 years of age attending the outpatient setup of a tertiary care setup in Nagpur, Maharashtra. Demographic details and anthropometric measurements were done for the children with necessary permission before the start of the study. Anthropometry was done using standard guidelines and WHO charts were used for classification of wasting and underweight Results: We included 260 study subjects in our study. The mean age of the children was 21.55 ± 17.31 months and majority of them were females, belonged to Hindu religion (58.07%), belonged to Class 4 (33.08%) and the mothers were educated up to senior secondary (34.62%). Neck circumference had significant positive correlation with birth weight (r=0.138) and body mass index (r=0.211). The average neck circumference was significantly lower in case of wasted (p< 0.05) and underweight children (p< 0.05). Conclusion: Neck circumference correlated significantly with body mass index and was significantly lower in wasted and underweight in children less than 5 years of age.