Factores socioeconómicos asociados al estado nutricional de niños de 2 a 5 años de la comunidad Los Caras, provincia de Manabí en el periodo de noviembre del 2022 a enero del 2023.

Abstract

The study of socioeconomic factors associated with the nutritional status of children from 2 to 5 years of age in the Los Caras community, Province of Manabí in the period of November 2022 allowed us to identify which aspects and socioeconomic characteristics affect infants in relation to their type of diet concluding that there is no incidence of the independent variable (socioeconomic group) on the dependent variable (nutritional status) of the study population. Thanks to the evaluation of the nutritional status with the anthropometric indicators of weight/height and height/age of the study sample, it was found that 51% of the infants have mild malnutrition, 35% of them have a normal nutritional status, the 7% have moderate malnutrition, 5% have severe malnutrition and 2% have mild acute malnutrition. This, in conjunction with the sociodemographic survey, which made it possible to investigate incident factors such as the type of housing, access to basic services and technology, transportation, educational level, social security affiliation, among others, led to determining the children who belong to a medium high socioeconomic level, typical medium, medium low or low socioeconomic group, which, however, does not affect the malnutrition of this child population.