Rationale
Child growth is an internationally accepted outcome area reflecting child nutritional status. Child overweight refers to a child who is too heavy for his or her height. This form of malnutrition results from expending too few calories for the amount of food consumed and increases the risk of noncommunicable diseases later in life. Child overweight is one of the World Health Assembly 2025 global nutrition target indicators. Child overweight is one of the indicators under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) indicators target 2.2
Definition
Prevalence of overweight (weight for height >+2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age. Numbers affected (thousands) of overweight (weight for height >+2 standard deviation from the median of the World Health Organization (WHO) Child Growth Standards) among children under 5 years of age.
Method of measurement
Methods and Guidance: WHO and UNICEF provide recommendations for data collection, analysis and reporting on anthropometric indicators in children under 5 years old.(Recommendations for data collection, analysis and reporting on anthropometric indicators in children under 5 years old. Geneva: World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), 2019. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.) Analysis Tool To facilitate re-running of nutritional survey data based on standardized approach, WHO has developed an online tool to analyse child anthropometric data. The WHO Anthro Survey Analyzer aims to promote best practices on data collection, analyses and reporting of anthropometric indicators. It offers analysis for four indicators: length/height-for-age, weight-for-age, weight-for-length, weight-for-height and body mass index-for-age. (WHO Anthro Survey Analyser and other tools) Global Reporting The modelled estimates are the official source used for global reporting on this indicator. (Metadata: SDG 2.2.2a)
Method of estimation
Data collection method UNICEF and WHO employ their existing networks to obtain data. WHO relies on the organization’s structure and an expanding network developed following the creation of the WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition. For UNICEF, the cadre of dedicated data and monitoring specialists working at national, regional and international levels in 190 countries routinely provides technical support to produce child malnutrition estimates through surveys and administrative systems and analyses for improved programme planning. The World Bank Group provides estimates available through the Living Standard Measurement Surveys (LSMS). Method of computation National estimates from primary sources (e.g., from household surveys) used to generate the JME global estimates are based on standardized methodology using the WHO Child Growth Standards as described in “The UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME) standard methodology” (The UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME) standard methodology New York: the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization and the World Bank, 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.) and WHO Anthro Survey Analyser (WHO Anthro Survey Analyser and other tools). The JME global estimates are generated using smoothing techniques and covariates ( McLain AC, Frongillo EA, Feng J, Borghi E. Prediction intervals for penalized longitudinal models with multisource summary measures: An application to childhood malnutrition. Stat Med. 2019 Mar 15;38(6):1002-1012. doi: 10.1002/sim.8024. Epub 2018 Nov 14. PMID: 30430613.) applied to quality-assured national data to derive trends and up-to-date estimates. Worldwide and regional estimates are derived as the respective country averages weighted by the countries’ under-five population estimates (UNPD-WPP latest available edition) using annual JME global estimates for 205 countries. ( The UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (JME) standard methodology New York: the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization and the World Bank, 2024. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO.) However, estimates are only presented in the cases where a country has input data. In line with WHO’s data principle to use transparent models and methods, all codes used to generate estimates for the latest round and prior rounds are openly available on WHO’s GitHub repository. (UNICEF-WHO-World Bank Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates- Stunting and Overweight Global Health Estimates. )
