Nutrition of Urban-poor Children

The investigators undertook a program to promote the consumption of healthy foods and reduce the prevalence of malnutrition of children below the age of 5 years in an urban-poor community, by 10% year-on-year through nutrition education and the provision of healthy food. The main purpose of the study is to determine the impact of these nutrition intervention programs on the nutritional status of children under-5 in Selangor.

This retrospective pre-post intervention study will use data collected from 2 previous studies that were carried out between July 2020 to May 2021 (Eat Healthy Project 1.0) and March 2022 to December 2023 (Eat Healthy Project 2.0). The 2 studies had been approved by the Medical Research and Ethics Committees of University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) and the Ministry of Health, Malaysia and registered with the National Medical Research Registry (NMRR).

The main outcome measures were:

1. Improved dietary practices, in particular, an increase in the proportion of children who meet the minimum dietary diversity score of 5 food groups, post-intervention. 2. An increase in proportion of children consuming fruits and vegetables and a decrease in proportion of children consuming sugar-sweetened foods and beverages post-intervention. 3. A decrease in prevalence of malnutrition - underweight, wasting and stunting. The comparator will be urban-poor children attending a Child Health clinic who had received nutritional education but no provision of food supplementation.