[Analysis of nutritional status among Chinese students of five ethnic minorities aged 7-18 years in 2014]

Objective: To understand the nutritional status among Chinese students of five ethnic minorities aged 7-18 years. Methods: Chinese National Survey on Students Constitution and Health in 2014 applied multi-stage stratified cluster random sampling, including 214 354 students from 31 province of China mainland. 73 students whose height or weight information were missing, were excluded. 25 968 minority students aged 7-18 years from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Jilin Provinces were included for data analysis, including Mongolian (n=5 107), Hui (n=5 308), Uygur (n=5 740), Zhuang (n=5 267) and Korean (n=4 546) students. According to the BMI standard of Working Group on Obesity in China (WGOC) and the new students' health standard of Screening Standard for Malnutrition of School-age Children and Adolescents (WS/T 456-2014) , students were defined as wasting, normal weight, overweight and obesity groups and the nutritional status in different minorities and other characteristics was described and analyszed. Results: The prevalences of wasting in Zhuang, Hui, Uygur, Korean and Mongolian students were 6.1% (318/5 267), 5.1% (266/5 308), 3.2% (187/5 740), 2.6% (116/4 546) and 1.3% (65/5 107) in descending order (χ(2)=212.60, P<0.001), respectively. The prevalences of overweight in Korean, Mongolian, Hui, Uygur and Zhuang students were 15.2% (686/4 546), 13.1% (669/5 107), 10.3% (549/5 308), 7.8% (446/5 740) and 7.8% (413/5 267) in descending order (χ(2)=220.80, P<0.001), respectively. The prevalences of obesity in Korean, Mongolian, Hui, Zhuang and Uygur students were 15.3% (695/4 546), 9.5% (488/5 107), 5.7% (304/5 308), 4.6% (242/5 267) and 3.6% (206/5 740) in descending order (χ(2)=647.02, P<0.001), respectively. The prevalences of wasting in Mongolian, Uygur and Korean rural students were 1.7% (44/2 623), 3.9% (113/2 868) and 3.4% (74/2 154), higher than urban students (all P values <0.05) which were 0.8% (21/2 484), 2.6% (74/2 872) and 1.8% (42/2 392) in Mongolian, Uygur and Korean students. The prevalence of obesity in Mongolian, Hui, Uygur, Zhuang and Korean urban students were 10.8% (269/2 484), 7.6% (193/2 554), 4.1% (117/2 872), 5.9% (153/2 601) and 16.6% (396/2 392), higher than rural students (all P values <0.05) which were 8.3% (219/2 623), 4.0% (111/2 754), 3.1% (89/2 868), 3.3% (89/2 666) and 13.9% (299/2 154) in Mongolian, Hui, Uygur, Zhuang and Korean students. The prevalence of obesity in Hui, Zhuang and Korean boys were 7.2% (188/2 570), 6.0% (157/2 628) and 17.2% (394/2 282), respectively, higher than that of girls which were 4.2% (116/2 738), 3.3% (85/2 639) and 13.3% (301/2 264) (all P values <0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of wasting, overweight and obesity varied by ethnic minorities in mainland China. The prevalence of overweight and obesity appears higher among mongolian and Korean students, while the prevalence of wasting was higher in Zhuang students.