A new monitoring system for nutritional status assessment in children at home.

Regular monitoring of children's nutritional status is essential to prevent micronutrient deficiencies, nutritional status abnormalities as stunting, wasting, overweight and obesity. Nutritional status assessment is usually performed by paediatricians by using anthropometry (body mass index, weight to height indices) and/or by body fat-mass measurement (bioimpedance analysis, dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, computer tomography, etc.). Parents are also interested in but usually fail to evaluate their child's nutritional status. To help the sufficient collaboration between the physician and parents a new nutritional status monitoring method is developed for families. The new monitoring system was developed under a paediatrician's supervision by considering national and international recommendations, references as well as the anthropometric measurement possibilities at home. The model requires age, sex, body mass, height, waist circumference and hand circumference as predictor (input) variables of nutritional status, while (1) the centile values of the measured body dimensions, (2) body fat percentage and the centile of body fat percentage, (3) the nutritional status category (undernutrition, normal nutritional status, overfat/obese) can be predicted (outcome variables) by the new method. The predictive accuracy of the model for nutritional status category was 94.88% in boys and 98.66% in girls. The new model was developed for nutritional status assessment in school-aged children and will be incorporated in the healthy lifestyle module of 'Teenage Survival Guide' educational package to be developed by the Health Promotion and Education Research Team, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary. The new monitoring system could help the families to identify the early signs of malnutrition in children. Nutritional status assessment in children at home is suggested twice a year, and in case of suspicious nutritional status abnormality it is recommended to visit the general practitioner.

Body structural and cellular aging of women with low socioeconomic status in Hungary: A pilot study.

OBJECTIVES: The health status of an individual is determined not only by their genetic background but also by their physical environment, social environment and access and use of the health care system. The Roma are one of the largest ethnic minority groups in Hungary. The majority of the Roma population live in poor conditions in segregated settlements in Hungary, with most experiencing higher exposure to environmental health hazards. The main aim of this study was to examine the biological health and aging status of Roma women living in low socioeconomic conditions in Hungary. METHODS: Low SES Roma (n: 20) and high SES non-Roma women (n: 30) aged between 35 and 65 years were enrolled to the present analysis. Body mass components were estimated by body impedance analysis, bone structure was estimated by quantitative ultrasound technique. Cellular aging was assessed by X chromosome loss estimation. Data on health status, lifestyle and socioeconomic factors were collected by questionnaires. RESULTS: The results revealed that low SES women are prone to be more obese, have a higher amount of abdominal body fat, and have worse bone structure than the national reference values. A positive relationship was found between aging and the rate of X chromosome loss was detected only in women with low SES. Waist to hip ratio, existence of cardiovascular diseases and the number of gravidities were predictors of the rate of X chromosome loss in women. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that age-adjusted rate of X chromosome loss could be related to the socioeconomic status.

The relationship between reproductive and biochemical ageing at the time of the menopausal transition.

The biochemical ageing status of women in the menopausal transition was studied using quantitative analysis of age- and autophagy-related gene activities (CDC42 and MAP1LC3 genes were selected as target genes). Free estradiol and progesterone levels in saliva were estimated. General linear models were used to determine the relationship between lifestyle, health status, socioeconomic factors and CDC42 and MAP1LC3 gene expression levels. Gene expression analysis revealed (1) an increasing expression of CDC42 gene after 45years in women, (2) expression level of CDC42 gene associated with menopausal status, (3) while endocrine status was found to associate with the expression of both of the studied age-related genes, (4) the "never used hormonal contraceptives" and "obese nutritional status" were the strongest factors for increased level of age-related gene expressions, and (5) changes in gene expression levels by ageing should be studied by considering not only chronological, but also biological ages. Gene expression profile of ageing has mostly been studied in model systems or human blood samples, but rarely in human saliva samples. The concordance of results between the present and former gene expression analyses, and the simplicity of saliva sample collection emphasizes the importance of saliva tissue samples in gene expression analyses especially in epidemiological surveys.

SECULAR GROWTH AND MATURATION CHANGES IN HUNGARY IN RELATION TO SOCIOECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES.

This paper analyses the secular changes in the body development patterns of Hungarian children between the 1910s and the beginning of the 2000s in relation to socioeconomic and demographic changes in the country. Individual growth data of children were available from two national growth studies (1983-86, 2003-06), while sample-size weighted means of children's body dimensions were collected through regional studies between the 1920s and 1970s. Gross domestic product, Gini index, life expectancy at birth and under-5 mortality rate were used to assess the changes in economic status, income inequalities of the society and the population's general health status, respectively. Secular changes in food consumption habits were also examined. The positive Hungarian secular changes in socioeconomic status were associated with a continuous increase in children's body dimensions. The negative socioeconomic changes reflected only in wartime and post-war periods of children's growth, and the considerable socioeconomic changes at the beginning of the 1990s did not appear to influence the positive trend in children's growth. The positive secular trend in stature and body mass did not level off at the beginning of the 2000s: the socioeconomic conditions that support optimal growth and maturation could improve in Hungary.

Sexual maturation pattern in the mirror of socioeconomic background.

The inequalities among the socioeconomic strata in the Hungarian society increased during the last decades. Since the socioeconomic conditions play a decisive part in shaping the growth and maturation of children, our purpose was to study the body structure and the growth and maturation pattern of children living in deprived regions in Hungary. Our former analysis revealed that the prevalence of non-normal nutritional status was significantly higher in children and adolescents living in the seriously deprived regions of Hungary than the national reference values. The main purpose of the present study was to compare the sexual maturation pattern of pubertal children living in the deprived regions by comparing the timing of pubertal maturation events to the national reference values. Sexual maturity status of 711 girls and 790 boys (aged 10 - 16 years) living in the deprived small regions of Hungary was compared to the national reference values (Hungarian National Growth Study II). Sexual maturity status was estimated by the stages of pubic hair, axillary hair, breast and external genitalia development, as well as by the menarcheal and spermarcheal status, respectively. The median ages of being in the pubertal stages of the sexual characteristics, menarcheal and spermarcheal age were estimated by probit analysis. By comparing it to the national reference values, the timing of pubertal development in boys and girls living in the seriously deprived regions showed a 1 - 3-month shift toward older ages. However, the length of sexual maturation: the interval between the median ages of the first and last pubertal stages of sexual characteristics was similar in the subjects living in the regions of Hungary as the Hungarian reference values.

The relationship between body structure and the socio-economic status in Hungarian children and adolescents.

Among the numerous factors that influence the pattern of children's growth and development there are factors of the changeable socio-economic environment. The inequalities among the socio-economic strata in the Hungarian society have increased during last decades. The main objective of the study was to examine the body structure of children and adolescents living in different socio-economic backgrounds. The subjects of the present paper (9479 boys, 9304 girls) were examined in the 2nd Hungarian National Growth Study 2003-2006. Body structure was assessed by some absolute body dimensions, BMI, body composition and body shape indices. Children were grouped into relatively good, average and poor socio-economic subgroups by considering the education and occupation of the parents as well as the number of children in the family. Significant differences were found in the body structure of children varying in the socio-economic background: the better the socio-economic conditions the higher stature in both genders, while the lower relative fatness was found only in pubertal girls. The prevalence of unhealthy nutritional statuses (both underweight and overweight/ obese) was significantly lower in children living in better socio-economic conditions in both genders. Differences that were found in the body structure of children living in different socio-economic backgrounds emphasize the importance of using reference growth values layered also to socio-economic strata for screening nutritional status in childhood and adolescence.

Recent trends in childhood obesity and overweight in the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

OBJECTIVE: Significant political changes--accompanied by economic changes and social restratification--occurred in Eastern and Central European countries in the 1990s. The main purposes of this study were to assess how prevalence of overweight and obese children changed in Hungary during this transitional period; and to compare the prevalence data of childhood overweight in Central and Eastern European countries, where a similar political and socioeconomic environment existed before the transition and similar changes occurred during the transitional period. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Representative samples from the first (1983-1986) and second (2003-2006) Hungarian growth studies were used to assess the prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity in Hungary. The most frequently used indicators of social welfare were used to estimate economic and health status as well as nutritional supply in the transition countries, while data on prevalence of childhood overweight in the studied countries were collected by a search of epidemiological surveys from the region. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Frequency of overweight and obese children in Hungary increased between the 1980s and the beginning of the 2000s. Prevalence of childhood overweight was very similar in those Central and Eastern European countries where economic, nutritional or health indicators of general welfare were at a similar level.

The 2nd Hungarian National Growth Study (2003-2006).

BACKGROUND: Secular changes in the pattern of growth and maturation have been analysed by many regional surveys in Hungary during the last century. The first representative Hungarian National Growth Study was carried out between 1980-1983. AIM: The main objectives of the 2nd Hungarian National Growth Study (2003-2006) were to construct reference data of the most important indicators of body development and nutritional status in Hungarian children (aged 3-18 years, n = 25 278); to analyse the influence of nutrition, habitual physical activity and socio-economic background factors on body development; to study secular changes in the pattern of development in Hungary in the last 20 years; and to analyse the relationship between body development and psychic health. SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Anthropometric dimensions and proportions, sexual maturity status, body composition, nutritional status and body shape were used for body developmental estimation. Some indicators of psychic health were also investigated. RESULTS: Reference centiles and data of all absolute body dimensions, some relative body dimensions and the pattern of eating and habitual physical activity have been constructed. CONCLUSION: Secular changes in the growth and maturation pattern are still taking place in the Hungarian population; sexual maturation in boys has shifted to a younger age.