BIG Pilot Project - Assessment Report - BIG Coalition Namibia

Section 2: Impact Assessmentand the children are so hungry. That’s when youdon’t know what to do and where to find food forthem.”This dire situation was illustrated in the shocking statisticsregarding weight-for-age (see below). The BIG hashelped improve the situation dramatically. This is,without doubt, one of our most important findings.In November2007, 42%of the childrenwereundernourished.Child Malnutrition (Weight for Age)The World Health Organisation (WHO) provides informationon the distribution of 'weight for age' ratios weshould expect to see in an adequately nourished population.Using this information as a benchmark, we cancompare the distribution of children in Otjivero-Omitarawith the WHO reference data to see how manywould be regarded as under- or over-weight for theirage.Some children are naturally heavier or lighter than others,so the WHO regards a range of weight for age ratiosas 'normal'. Only those children who fall significantlybelow the median (mid-point) of the WHO's range of valuesare classified as 'malnourished' and only those whofall significantly above the median are classified as'overweight'. The WHO uses 'standard deviation units'or 'z-scores (which standardize the deviation from theaverage normal distribution) to classify children as under-or overweight for their age. In terms of thisscheme, a child with a z-score of 0 weighs exactly whatthe WHO would expect, given his or her age. Childrenwith z-scores of between 1 and -1 are above and belowthe median weight for age, but this difference is not regardedas a problem, as it falls within the healthy distributionof weight for age values. However, children,who fall below -1 are seen as heading towards seriousmalnutrition, and those below -2 are regarded as malnourished.Likewise, children, who score above 2, areregarded as unhealthily overweight for their age.52