[The growth characteristics of children under 5 in the past 15 years]

To describe the changes of the nutritional status of children under 5 in China in the past 15 years for evidence-based policy making.

The datasets of China Food and Nutrition Surveillance during 1990-2005 were analyzed to compare the growth development of Chinese children under 5. Z scores and prevalence of underweight, prevalence of stunting were used as the indicators and WHO standard is applied.

The prevalence of underweight and stunting of children steadily reduced from 22.6% in 1990 to 8.6% in 2005 and from 41.4% in 1990 to 13.1% in 2005 respectively. The disparity of stunting prevalence between urban and rural has been narrowed form 32 percentage points to 10.6 percentage points from during 1990 - 2005. But the underweight prevalence and stunting prevalence of children in poor rural areas was 12.3% and 17.6% respectively in year 2005. As the improvement of weight growth speed was faster than the height growth, the 'stunted obesity' has been emerging among rural children, during 1992 - 1995, which was as high as 12.6% . The height growth of children improved quickly during 200 - 2005 and better matched with weight growth.

The growth of Chinese children has been dramatically improved during the past 15 years. The disparity of prevalence of underweight and stunting between urban and rural narrowed. But malnutrition in poor rural areas is still serious even it improved in recent years. Recommendation on comprehensive intervention including improving quality of complementary feeding for children aged 6 - 24 month by country-specific home level fortification and quality of the diet for older children should be the key strategies parallel with breastfeeding is made.