Secular growth and nutrition trends among Hani ethnicity children and adolescents in China, 2005-2014

Objective To analyze secular growth trend and nutrition status among Hani ethnicity children and adolescents in China from 2005 to 2014, and to provide suggestions for improving growth and nutrition among Hani children and adolescents. Methods Data on physical and nutritional status for 2 591, 2 629, and 2 637 Hani students aged 7-18 years in Yunnan province were extracted with stratified random cluster sampling from databases of three waves of survey on physique and health conditions of Chinese students conducted in 2005, 2010, and 2014.We analyzed trends in the changes of growth retardation, malnutrition, secular growth, and nutrition status among the students during the period. Results The malnutrition rate decreased from 38.38% to 32.17% and 30.36% to 28.13% among the Hani boys and girls, suggesting an improvement of nutritional status among the students.The growth retardation rates were 33.92%, 28.52%, and 27.01% among the boys and 26.88%, 24.89%, and 25.63% among the girls, respectively, in 2005, 2010 and 2014.During the 10-year period, the girls showed a two-younger average age of height spurt than the boys (11years vs.13 years).The male to female differences in the height were 3.71 cm, 10.65 cm, and 12.50 cm in 2005, 2010, and 2014, respectively, among the students.No obvious variation was observed in body mass index (BMI) among the students. Conclusion Both the physical development and nutritional status present a trend of improvement but malnutrition remains a serious problem among Hani children and adolescents during the period of 2005 to 2014.