Malnutrición infantil en niños menores de 10 años en el Ecuador: Una revisión sistemática

Abstract

Introduction: Child malnutrition refers to imbalances in children's diets, which includes malnutrition, overweight, and obesity resulting in serious consequences for the children’s health. Objective: To conduct a systematic review to identify risk factors and pathologies associated with child malnutrition in children under ten years of age in Ecuador. Methodology: PRISMA 2020 was used; the main databases for the search were: Google Scholar, SciELO, PubMed, Medline, repositories of national universities, and the Catholic University of Cuenca. Eligibility criteria were: year of publication, language, results, keywords, and publication type Those not related to children under ten years and repeated articles were excluded. Results: It was evidenced that most studies agree that the principal factors of child malnutrition are social (75%), economic (70%), cultural (25%), nutritional (65%), and non-adherence to exclusive breastfeeding (25%). Also, the presence of chronic malnutrition (83,5%) and a lower rate of studies confirming the presence of overweight (16,6%). Conclusion: In Ecuador, there are many cases of child malnutrition due to a lack of economic resources and, above all, to the neglect and poor eating habits of their parents and the lack of monitoring of public policies implemented by the Ecuadorian government.

Key words: malnutrition, children, risk factors, breastfeeding, undernutrition.