Age, sex and anthropometric status of children in an African pastoral community

Abstract

The study objective was to explore sex differences in anthropometric status of children from a semi-nomadic population of Datoga pastoralists living in northern Tanzania and test the hypothesis that any differences would be related to age- and gender-specific work activities. Anthropometric measurements made on 438 individual children (0-18 years) were used to assess the association of various anthropometric measures of achieved growth status with age, sex and season of measurement. There was a high overall prevalence of indicators of undernutrition but the risk of undernutrition was not uniformly distributed within the child population. Comparison of cross-sectional mean anthropometric scores suggested that children over 5 years, girls 5-8 years, boys 9-12 years and teenagers were found to be at highest risk of undernutrition as assessed by various indicators. Although the prevalence of all indicators of undernutrition showed a significant increase with age, the prevalence of indicators of undernutrition did not show a statistically significant sex difference within any age group. There was little evidence of sex-preferential treatment of children or strongly biased sex ratios or mortality rates. Taken together, these results indicate that the anthropometric status of children may be associated with the age- and gender-specific pattern of work activities typical of this population. Possible mechanisms through which anthropometric status may be influenced by work activities are hypothesized.