Comparing the nutritional status of children and adolescents from North Korean defector families and South Korean families

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to investigate the nutritional status of children and adolescents from North Korean defector (NKD) families who are currently living in South Korea (SK) and compared with the status of those from SK families. DESIGN: A cross-sectional study comparing the prevalence of malnutrition, overweight and obesity between children and adolescents from NKD families and SK families. SETTING: Children and adolescents from NKD families were interviewed face-to-face directly, whereas the data about those from SK families acquired by using 2017 Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Their nutritional status were estimated using the 2017 Korean National Growth Charts for children and adolescents. PARTICIPANTS: The total number of children and adolescents was 2136 consisting of 527 subjects from the NKD families and 1609 subjects from the SK families. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of stunting, wasting, underweight, overweight and obesity in NKD group was 8.9%, 10.2%, 10.4%, 11.2% and 12.2% respectively, and 1.9%, 7.1%, 5.9%, 9.2% and 9.3%, respectively, in SK families. The NKD group showed significantly higher prevalence than SK group in stunting (p<0.001), wasting (p=0.014), underweight (p<0.001), obesity (p=0.041) but not in overweight. CONCLUSIONS: The nutritional status of children and adolescents form NKD families was worse than that of those from SK families, and also higher prevalence of obesity.