Kuwait nutritional survey: comparison of the nutritional status of Kuwaiti children aged 0-5 years with the NCHS/CDC reference population.

A national cross-sectional survey of the heights and weights of Kuwaiti preschool-age children of 0-5 years was conducted on a stratified multistage sample of 2554 subjects from high and low socioeconomic levels. The collected data were used to compare the nutritional status of these children with their American counterparts using the NCHS/CDC reference population. The basic indices for comparison were height for age and weight for height, each considered in terms of centiles and standard deviation (SD) scores and cross-classified using the SD scores. The results indicated that Kuwaiti children in the studied age groups were shorter than American children, 47.7% falling below the 30th centile of the reference population. Conversely, the weights of Kuwaiti children aged 0-5 years were much closer to their American counterparts, 51.8% falling above the 50th centile of the reference population.