LAP Lambert Academic Publishing Child Malnutrition in Bangladesh: Levels, Trends, and Determinants: A Study based on Anthropometric Measurements

Child malnutrition is an emerging problem to attain many of the millennium development goals including extreme poverty and hungry, primary education, and child mortality. Children of developing countries like Bangladesh are more vulnerable from malnutrition. Though Bangladesh is on the track to meet the target of MDGs, the level of child malnutrition is still very high, a great concern for achieving the target within the time. In this regard it is indispensable to follow the status of malnutrition as well as identify its determinants. The study aims to explore the levels, trends and predictors of malnutrition for the under five Bangladeshi children in terms of three forms - stunting, wasting and underweight utilizing the nationwide data of Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey 2004. The UNICEF modified conceptual framework is followed to consider basic, underlying, immediate and temporal causes. Both binary and ordinal logistic regression techniques are utilized to identify the determinants of child malnutrition. Based on the findings, some recommendations are suggested for eliminating nutrition vulnerability of Bangladeshi children.