Age, sex and anthropometric status of children in an African pastoral community

The study objective was to explore sex differences in anthropometric status of children from a semi-nomadic population of Datoga pastoralists living i n northern Tanzania and test the hypothesis that any differences would be r elated to age- and gender-specific work activities. Anthropometric measurem ents made on 438 individual children (0 -18 years) were used to assess the association of various anthropometric measures of achieved growth status wi th age, sex and season of measurement. There was a high overall prevalence of indicators of undernutrition but the risk of undernutrition was not unif ormly distributed within the child population. Comparison of cross-sectiona l mean anthropometric scores suggested that children over 5 years, girls 5- 8 years, boys 9-12 years and teenagers were found to be at highest risk of undernutrition as assessed by various indicators. Although the prevalence o f all indicators of undernutrition showed a significant increase with age, the prevalence of indicators of undernutrition did not show a statistically significant sex difference within any age group. There was little evidence of sex-preferential treatment of children or strongly biased sex ratios or mortality rates. Taken together, these results indicate that the anthropom etric status of children may be associated with the age- and gender-specifi c pattern of work activities typical of this population. Possible mechanism s through which anthropometric status may be influenced by work activities are hypothesized.