Search

Objective: To study the relation between sleep habits, nutritional status, growth and maturation in a group of African adolescent girls. The main hypothesis to be tested was that sleep length could be an effective way to spare energy, and thus malnourished girls sleep longer than normal girls. Design: Three repeated yearly surveys (1997–1999) on a subsample of girls drawn from a larger study cohort on growth at adolescence. Setting: The Niakhar district in the central part of Senegal. Subjects: In total, 40 girls were initially drawn. Missing girls were replaced at each round by girls having the same characteristics and belonging to the same cohort. Interventions: At each round, data on pubertal development (breast stages and occurrence of menarche), growth and nutritional status were collected. Adolescents wore an accelerometer for three or four consecutive nights and days at each round. Results: At the beginning of the survey, girls were 13.3±0.5 y old. They were under international reference values in weight and height. Their mean sleep duration was 8.5±0.9 h. Their puberty status did not influence their sleep habits; however, they slept more in March than in June, which was related to the seasonal change in daylight. There was a significant relation between body mass index and sleep habits: thinner girls slept a longer time and more quietly than the more corpulent girls. Conclusions: The nutritional status of these girls influenced their sleep habits: this may have been either a direct causal relation or a consequence of a protective attitude on the part of the mothers towards the frailer girls. Sponsorship: The R024 ‘Epidemiologie et Prevention’ of the IRD (France) and the Nestle Foundation.

ObjectiveTo assess the relative importance of socioeconomic and maternal/prenatal determinants of the nutritional situation of children < 6 years old in an urban African area after several years of economic crisis.DesignCross-sectional cluster sample survey.SettingBrazzaville, capital city of the Congo.SubjectsInformation on socioeconomic characteristics was gathered from a random sample of 1368 households by house visits and anthropometric measurements were performed using standardized procedures on preschool children (n=2373) and their mothers (n=1512).ResultsThe influence of socioeconomic factors on the nutritional status of children, taking into account adjustment variables such as mother's age and child's age and sex was assessed. For stunting, as well as for the mean height-for-age index among children, the main determinants were economic level of the household (P=0.048 and P=0.004, respectively), schooling of the mother (P=0.004 and P < 10−3) and living in the peripheral district (P=0.005 and P < 10−3). The influence of socioeconomic determinants on weight-for-age and wasting was less straightforward. When adjusting, in addition, for maternal and prenatal factors (mother's height and body mass index (BMI) and birth weight), most of the effects of the socioeconomic determinants on the nutritional status of children persisted somewhat, but the effect of the economic level on the stunting became not significant (P=0.11). The mean BMI of mothers appeared to be related to the economic level of the household (P < 10−4), to the marital status (P=0.01) and to the occupation of the mother (P < 10−4).ConclusionsAmong the socioeconomic determinants of malnutrition in children, some, such as economic level of the household or schooling of the mother, seem to act mainly through prenatal factors, whereas others, mainly dwelling district characteristics, seem to influence more directly the children's nutritional status.