Premium
Nutritional Status Of Preschool Children From Intact And Divorced Families
Author(s) -
Bowering Jean,
Wynn Ruth L.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
home economics research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 31
eISSN - 1552-3934
pISSN - 0046-7774
DOI - 10.1177/1077727x8601500207
Subject(s) - iron status , anthropometry , marital status , transferrin saturation , demography , percentile , low income , national health and nutrition examination survey , medicine , psychology , developmental psychology , environmental health , iron deficiency , anemia , population , statistics , mathematics , socioeconomics , sociology
We examined nutritional status data on selected white preschool children from the Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES II) who were from either two‐parent, intact families or single‐parent families headed by divorced or separated women. Income was significantly lower in single‐parent families, regardless of mothers' employment status. Neither marital status nor work status was significantly related to laboratory indicators of iron and vitamin status, anthropometric measures, or nutrient intake. Children (especially boys) in single‐parent families tended to have more low serum transferrin saturation values than children from intact families. Girls with single mothers had heights below the fifth percentile more frequently than girls from intact families. Al though we found no strong evidence for nutritional deficiency, there were indi cations of potential for increased nutritional risk among preschoolers with di vorced or separated parents.