Malnutrition of Preschool Children in China: Past, Present and Future

Children are the most vulnerable group to nutrition deficiency, especially for the children under 5 years of age. This paper reviewed the prevalence of malnutrition including stunting, underweight, wasting in past (before reforming and opening-up) and present (after reforming and opening-up) and doubleburden in undernutrition and over-nutrition of Chinese preschool children in future. With fast economic growth, health and nutrition status among the rural population has shown significant improvement in the past decades in China. However, malnutrition of Children remains a large health challenge in some poor and remote rural areas of North-western, South-western and Midwestern provinces of China. At the same time, the co-existence of underuntrition and over-nutrition (overweight and obesity) in both urban and rural areas has been called a “double burden” of disease. The prevalence of overweight and obesity in the urban areas is higher than that in rural areas, while nutrient deficiencies and wasting among rural children are much more common compared to the urban areas. Nutritional improvement for preschool children as public health policies should focus on implementing strategies such as alleviating poverty and improving household economic status, increasing dietary diversity, enhancing mothers' nutrition education to address these deficiencies among children, carrying out supplementation and food fortification.