Relationships between Dietary Diversity and Nutritional Status among Primary School Students in Ardebil

Dietary diversity score is a method to assess quality of individual's diet variation. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between dietary diversity and child growth status among primary school students in Ardabil. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 280 primary school students with age range of 7-11years in 2012. Data were collected using a personal information questionnaire and three 24-h recall questionnaires. Dietary diversity score was calculated from the number of food groups in all the three 24-hour recall questionnaires. Z-score related to weight for age and height for age were calculated by Epi info software version 6; World Health Organization, and entered into SPSS version16. The mean age of the students was 1.42 ± 8.9 years. In terms of height for age, 20 students (14.7%) were in the normal range (z-score ≤ -2) and 260 (92.86%) suffered from stunted growth (Z-score ≥ -3). The index of weight for age of 14 students (5%) was normal and 266 (95%) were severely underweight. In terms of BMI; 77 (27.5%) were lean and 203(72.5%) were obese. No significant relationships were observed between weight, height, and BMI of the student and their dietary diversity. Although there was no significant relation between nutritional indexes and dietary diversity score, but the results showed that prevalence of severe malnutrition is high and dietary diversity scores are low among primary school students in Ardebil.