Role of Zinc in Physical Growth and Cognitive Development

Role of Zinc in Physical Growth and cognitive DevelopmentSummaryThe study covered 2 to 3 twelvemonth venerable nestlingren in Laguna, Philippines. The study was conducted for the following purposes to determine the surface side and its relationship to physical addition and cognitive victimization to describe the socio-economic and demographic characteristics, pee and sanitation practices, wellness function, and child business and provide practices of m some others to gauge the pabulum intake and nutrient adequacy to assess the nutritional emplacement, atomic number 30 lieu and urge on status to determine the level of cognitive development and to examine the association of atomic number 30 status with peeing supply and sanitation practices, wellness services, child wish and feeding practices, nutritional status, constrict status, and cognitive development.Socio-economic and demographic characteristics revealed that much than half(prenominal) of the signs were located in lowland atomic number 18as. Majority were living(a) in single houses. Some professed the house and inherited the hooking from parent. In terms of house materials, approximately roofs and external w each(prenominal)s were made from galvanized iron and concrete/brick/stone. much than one-third of the households have floorings cemented with tiles/linoleum. The main source of electricity was MERALCO in which more than than half have their own electric meter. LPG was their study source of fuel for cooking. Further, few households have small holding with rural animals like cattle, chicken, ducks, horses and milk cows. Of the households, 69% have 3 to 5 members in the family and 38.5% have children 12 years old and below. In terms of household income, the monthly income ranges from Php1, 000.00 to Php67, 200.00 with a mean monthly income of Php7, 762.00. In general, 57.7% of households were below indigence threshold.The get along with of mothers ranged from 19 to 5 8 years old. With a mean maturate of 29.9 years, more than one-third of the mother-respondents were amid 25 to 29 years old. nearly 3% and 25% were below 20 years and beyond 35 years of age, respectively. In terms of education attainment, absolute majority of mother-respondents either reached steep school or graduated from high school. Probably because of lack of education, majority of them have no occupation. Majority of the mothers were married. With regards to religion, most mothers were Roman Catholic.There were more children in district 2 who participated in the study probably because of high number of children in the area. More than half were 31 to 35 months of age and were pistillate. Some of them belong as the second child in the family. Moreover, 30.2% of the mothers remembered the brook weight of their children based from recall and as recorded in the childs birth certificate. Only 4% of children were born with low weight.More than one-third of the households have main source of and access to drinking water from the community water system. More than half of the mothers stockpiled water in tensile containers with cover for little than 5 days which can reduce the try of water storage from beingness contaminated. Perhaps having an access to sufficient forest and quantity of safe water for consumption, nearly one-third of the mothers do non to store water for drinking. Majority of the mothers spent amount of time obtaining water from water sites that could have been dedicated to other activities like child tutelage. In terms of toilet facilities, about all households have their own water-sealed latrines provided 30.9% of them shared their toilets with other households. In relation to garbage governing and requisition, most of the households have their garbage collected and carried out proper waste segregation possibly because of the garbage collection system being implemented in the province.In terms of wellness conditions, almost 70% of the children have been couch for the last 30 days. The most common type of illness experienced was Upper Respiratory Tract Infection such as cough, mothy and pneumonia. Parasitism was one of the existing health illnesses among children but majority of them were not except dewormed. Among children who had suffered from illnesses, 85.9% of the mothers sought for medical help probably because of better access to health centers. In terms of infection, only 12.1% of children were tested positive with infection. Male children were more at jeopardize to infection than female counterparts. With regards to health services, 48.3% of children were not to the full immunized, 20.1% received iron syrups and 79.2% received Vitamin A addendum. More than half of the mothers brought their children to health centers when suffering from diarrhea and nearly 30% of children were provided with Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS). In terms of participation in nutrition education classes, only 32.2% of the mothers were attending. In addition, 65.1% of the households were involved in different government nutrition programs nutriment for thought fortification, viands assistance, community food for thought production and livelihood programs.Relative to child care and feeding practices, most of the mothers were the main source of physical and emotional care of the children. In her absence, 31.6% of grandmothers took responsibility by feeding the child, bathing the child and baby-sitting. only mothers claimed that they frequently talk, praise, kiss/hug/show affection, play, and tell stories with their children. During meals, majority of the mothers help, encourage and motivate the children to eat as well as they maintain marrow to eye contact and minimize distractions if children lose interest easily. Similarly, most of the mothers site their children to sleep and take care of them when they wake up at night. In terms of the childrens personal hygiene, more than half of the m have their own utensils. Majority of childrens hands and face were being washed to begin with eating and by and by toileting. Of the mothers, almost all wash their hands after toileting the child. In relation to the cleanliness of environment, most of the mothers made sure that their children do not eat food picked up from the ground, do not eat food touched by animals and keep their children away from animal excrement. Moreover, most of the mothers unaccompanied breastfed their children initiated breastfeeding within the first hour of life and gave colostrum during infancy. Nearly half of the children were introduced with solid foods at six months. Most of the children were continued being breastfed by mothers even when they have been given solid food. As children grow old, almost all mothers said they increase their childrens quantity of food, frequency of feeding, symmetry of food, and number of food given to them. Moreover, nearly all mothers experiment food combinations, tastes and textures for their children. Similarly, majority of the mothers feed their children during illnesses and recovery. In reference from the scoring system essential for the study, results show that child care and feeding practices of the mothers were excellent which may be attributed to participation in health and nutrition education activities conducted in all barangay.Feeding problems were being encountered among children. Majority of the children accept very limited number of food and reject other food thus they eat food of the same nutrients. Most of them tend to linger with their food during mealtime. More than half eat more than what they need. Conversely, a few of them felt like disgorgement oddly when fed with coarse foods and almost asserted independence in choosing the taste of food.The mean 2-day total food intake of children weighed 1126.2 grams. The two food items considered as the most important in childrens diet were strain and rice products, and whole milk. Overall, majority of the children had energy intake of 100% or more and protein intake of 80% or more. More than 80% of children were fitted to meet the EAR for Fe and 79.2% for Zn. Thus, no elevated risk of coat deficiency was nominate among children based on atomic number 30 intake. In terms of supplementation, results show that 47% of children were given with vitamin supplements.Based from the three anthropometric indices, weight-for-age showed that 81.2% of the children had mean(prenominal) weight-for-age turn 18.8% suffered from acute malnutrition. Disaggregating by gender, females were more at-risk to acute malnutrition than males. Height-for-age revealed that 33.5% of children were stunted while 66.4% of children had normal height-for-age. The distribution of height-for-age by gender revealed that males had higher(prenominal) preponderance at 19.5% than females. Weight-for-height presented that 3.4% of children had low weight-for-height. Majority had normal weight- for-height while 1.3% was overweight-for-height. Considering the weight-for-height distribution by gender, the current nutritional status of children revealed that 45.6% and 49.7% males and females, respectively, had normal weight-for-height. In terms of biochemical indices, the general zinc deficiency prevalence was 2%, which considered as low habitual health significance. The mean serum zinc level in children was 123.13g/dL. Both gender had the same mean serum zinc, but female children were appoint at risk to zinc deficiency. The overall anemia prevalence rate was 12.1% and considered as moderate public health significance. The mean hemoglobin level of children was 11.95 g/dL. Mean hemoglobin level and prevalence was higher among female children than male. Only 12.1% of children were tested positive with infection. Male children were at risk to infection than female counterparts.Assessment of cognitive development showed that the add up cognitive scaled score was 9.72 points. Disaggregated by age in months, 31 to 35 month old children had the highest average cognitive scaled scores. In general, 27.5% of children were slow in overall development, from which 12.1% had significant delay while 26.2% were advanced in their overall development from which 1.3% was significantly advanced.Correlation analysis revealed that significant associations were found in water and sanitation practices, health services, infection, food intake, nutritional status and cognitive development. No association was found between child care practices and nutritional status. Using the regression model, the study showed contributive factors that zinc status were energy intake, iron intake, zinc intake, height-for-age, cognitive development and infection.ConclusionsThe study imparted some knowledge and infrastanding on the association of zinc status, physical growth, other biochemical indices and cognitive development. It provided evidences on the association of zinc status with wa ter and sanitation practices, infection and health services, child care and feeding practices, food intake, physical growth, iron status and cognitive development.The study found factors that were associated with nutritional status of children. Water and sanitation practices of the households and the mothers like sources of water, storage of water, garbage disposal and waste segregation as well as health services extended to children were associated with nutritional status. In the same manner, infection, food intake and cognitive development were associated with nutritional status. Similarly, weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height were associated with zinc status, iron status and cognitive development. Associations were found in zinc status, iron status and cognitive development and between iron status and cognitive development, as well.Regression model showed the contributory factors that may affect zinc deficiency. Children with adequate intake of energy, zinc and ir on were less likely to become zinc deficient. Similarly, zinc deficiency was less likely to occur among children with normal height for their age and who have an average cognitive development. Conversely, zinc deficiency was higher in children with infection.RecommendationsWith the assessment of zinc status and its relationship with physical growth and cognitive development, it is recommended that in the motion of optimum nutritional status of 2 to 3 year old children, food intake should be improved early in life. comestible counselling among mothers on Infant and Young Child Feeding should be implemented to promote breastfeeding the importance of early initiation of breastfeeding and timely mental home of complementary feeding and its effect on infant growth and survival. Considering the impertinently child growth standards, promotion of breastfeeding and improvement of appropriate complementary feeding are important due to its effects on morbidity, feeding patterns and growth outcomes beyond infancy. Similarly, exclusively breastfed infants of mothers with adequate zinc nutriture can provide their zinc requirements up to 5 to 6 months in life. However, after 6 months of age, breastmilk alone cannot supply sufficient zinc to meet infants needs. So, retard introduction of complementary foods until after 6 months of age, or inadequate amounts of absorbable zinc in complementary foods increased the risk of zinc deficiency. Therefore, tick messages on zinc that presented to have associations with stunting and cognitive development. These nutritional outcomes are important in the overall growth and development of children.Because stunting is irreversible after 36 months of age, interventions on pregnant women and young children, particularly those under 24 months of age, should be given attention. Supplementary feeding interventions beyond 36 months of age would not reduce stunting, as rapid weight bring in in later childhood is associated with adverse long -term outcomes. A deterrent strategy of behavioural change communication for mothers and food supplementation for all 6 to 23 month old children should be targeted in juncture with the content and timing of present nutrition interventions.In the Philippines, zinc supplementation is provided for the treatment of diarrhea. The study had recognized that zinc delivery intervention such as supplementation improves zinc status, physical growth and cognitive development, as well as documented in the Lancet Series 2013. health service providers should examine the existing policies on micronutrient supplementation and consider if zinc supplementation could be integrated in the program.Mothers participation in health and nutrition services and programs improved the nutritional status of children. Thus, the local health units and health service providers should encourage the participation of the mothers in all health services such as immunization, deworming and micronutrient supplementation . The implementation of micronutrient supplementation should be decently strategized and improved. Health service providers should be more competent and more responsive. Supplies should be continuously available. Health information system should be more cost-effective and client care should be organized.Government programs should be intensified as these contribute to the improvement of nutritional status. Proper targeting of households and individuals should be designed especially when resources are inadequate. Moreover, nutrition programs should be periodically monitored to review the information, implementation and insurance coverage and use for comparison with the implementation plans. Similarly, programs should be systematically and objectively evaluated to appraise the relevance, efficiency and cost-effectiveness to determine if needs and results have been or are being achieved, and to analyze the details for any discrepancy.