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North Korean children: nutrition and growth

North Korea suffered from severe famine in the mid-1990s; this impacted many areas, including people's transnational movement, child growth, and mortality. This review carefully examined nutritional status trends of children in North Korea using published reports from national nutrition assessm...

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Autor principal: Lee, Soo-Kyung
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29301183
http://dx.doi.org/10.6065/apem.2017.22.4.231
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author Lee, Soo-Kyung
author_facet Lee, Soo-Kyung
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description North Korea suffered from severe famine in the mid-1990s; this impacted many areas, including people's transnational movement, child growth, and mortality. This review carefully examined nutritional status trends of children in North Korea using published reports from national nutrition assessment surveys. Nutritional adaptation of North Korean child refugees living in South Korea was also studied with their growth and food consumption, using published researches. The nutritional status of children in North Korea has recovered to a “low” level acute malnutrition status and a "medium" level chronic malnutrition status. Large disparities by geographic region still remain. North Korean child refugees in South Korea were significantly shorter and lighter than their age- and sex-matched South Korean counterparts (P<0.05); however, North Korean child refugees were catching up, and weight was improving faster than height. Linear growth retarded (height for age Z-score < -1) North Korean children showed a significantly higher respiratory quotient than nonlinear growth retarded children, indicating metabolic adaptation responding to the food shortage. These changes, accompanied by abundant access to food in South Korea, have led to the elimination of significant differences in the obesity ratio between North Korean and South Korean children living in South Korea after approximately 2 years of residency. This nutritional adaptation may not be beneficial to North Korean child refugees, especially given the prediction of Barker’s theory. The lack of studies prevented a better understanding of this issue; therefore, large cohort studies, preferably with random sampling strategies, are needed to further understand this issue and to design appropriate interventions.
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spelling pubmed-57698322018-01-19 North Korean children: nutrition and growth Lee, Soo-Kyung Ann Pediatr Endocrinol Metab Review Article North Korea suffered from severe famine in the mid-1990s; this impacted many areas, including people's transnational movement, child growth, and mortality. This review carefully examined nutritional status trends of children in North Korea using published reports from national nutrition assessment surveys. Nutritional adaptation of North Korean child refugees living in South Korea was also studied with their growth and food consumption, using published researches. The nutritional status of children in North Korea has recovered to a “low” level acute malnutrition status and a "medium" level chronic malnutrition status. Large disparities by geographic region still remain. North Korean child refugees in South Korea were significantly shorter and lighter than their age- and sex-matched South Korean counterparts (P<0.05); however, North Korean child refugees were catching up, and weight was improving faster than height. Linear growth retarded (height for age Z-score < -1) North Korean children showed a significantly higher respiratory quotient than nonlinear growth retarded children, indicating metabolic adaptation responding to the food shortage. These changes, accompanied by abundant access to food in South Korea, have led to the elimination of significant differences in the obesity ratio between North Korean and South Korean children living in South Korea after approximately 2 years of residency. This nutritional adaptation may not be beneficial to North Korean child refugees, especially given the prediction of Barker’s theory. The lack of studies prevented a better understanding of this issue; therefore, large cohort studies, preferably with random sampling strategies, are needed to further understand this issue and to design appropriate interventions. Korean Society of Pediatric Endocrinology 2017-12 2017-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC5769832/ /pubmed/29301183 http://dx.doi.org/10.6065/apem.2017.22.4.231 Text en © 2017 Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology & Metabolism This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Review Article
Lee, Soo-Kyung
North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title_full North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title_fullStr North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title_full_unstemmed North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title_short North Korean children: nutrition and growth
title_sort north korean children: nutrition and growth
topic Review Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5769832/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29301183
http://dx.doi.org/10.6065/apem.2017.22.4.231
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