Children and youth who don't have enough to eat are at increased risk of poor health, and repeated episodes of hunger may put them at risk for chronic diseases such as asthma, researchers say.
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The finding is from an analysis of data from a Canadian survey of 5,809 children aged 10 to 15 years and 3,333 youth aged 16 to 21 years, which was conducted from 1994 to 2004-2005.
During that time, 3.3 percent of children and 3.9 percent of youth experienced hunger at some point and 1.1 percent of children and 1.4 percent of youth went hungry on two or more occasions, the study found.
In the final round of the survey, 13.5 percent of children and 28.6 percent of youth reported poor health. Rates of poor health among those who'd experienced hunger at some point were higher than among those who had never gone hungry (32.9 percent of children and 47.3 percent of youth who had gone hungry were in poor health, compared with 12.8 percent of children and 27.9 percent of youth who had not).
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SOURCE: Health Day
