[Relationship between growth of young children and complementary feeding]

Description analysis, correlation regression analysis and logistic regression analysis were applied to evaluate the impact of complementary food on the growth of children from the aged 4 to 24 months, results on the effect of the complementary feeding were presented. Among children under 2 years in poor rural areas, 42% of them got complementary food containing animal food, 30.5% got milk, 57.8% got starchy foods, and 48.6% got vegetables and fruits. The coverage of complementary food containing animal food, vegetables/fruits was only half of that in the urban areas. Analysis revealed significantly positive correlation of HAZ, WAZ of all age group of children under 2 years with the appearance of animal foods, vegetable and fruit in the complementary food, but there was no significantly correlation with starchy foods. According to the regression coefficient, it was estimated that the prevalence of stunting aged 18-24 months could be reduced 2.6 percentage points if 10% increase of coverage of animal food containing complementary food in the CFNSS site was achieved. Logistic regression analysis showed the odds ratio (OR) of non-animal food complementary food for stunting was 2.21 for children aged 4-6 months, 1.73 for 6-12 months, 2.81 for 12-18 months, 2.58 for 18-24 months, OR for underweight was 2.87 for 12-18 months, and 2.08 for 18-24 months.