Community-based supplementary feeding for promoting the growth of children under five years of age in low and middle income countries

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2011

Community‐based supplementary feeding for promoting the growth of children under five years of age in low and middle income countries - The Cochrane Library - Sguassero - Wiley Online Library from LOGIN Enter e-mail address Enter password REMEMBER ME > > > > DATABASE TOOLS DATABASE MENU FIND ARTICLES OTHER RESOURCES Intervention Review You have full text access to this content Community‐based supplementary feeding for promoting the growth of children under five years of age in low and middle income countries Yanina Sguassero 1,* , Mercedes de Onis 2 , Ana María Bonotti 3,4 , Guillermo Carroli 1 Editorial Group: Published Online: 13 JUN 2012 Assessed as up-to-date: 31 JUL 2011 DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD005039.pub3 Copyright © 2012 The Cochrane Collaboration.
Community‐based supplementary feeding for promoting the growth of children under five years of age in low and middle income countries.
Publication History Publication Status: New search for studies and content updated (no change to conclusions) Published Online: 13 JUN 2012 SEARCH ARTICLE TOOLS Abstract Abstract Background Supplementary feeding is defined as the provision of extra food to children or families beyond the normal ration of their home diets.
The impact of food supplementation on child growth merits careful evaluation in view of the reliance of many states and non-governmental organisations on this intervention to improve child health in low and middle income countries (LMIC).
Objectives To evaluate the effectiveness of community-based supplementary feeding for promoting the physical growth of children under five years of age in LMIC.
Search methods For this updated review  we searched the following databases on 31 January 2011: CENTRAL ( The Cochrane Library ), MEDLINE (1948 to January week 3, 2011), EMBASE (1980 to week 3, 2011), CINAHL (1937 to 27 January 2011), LILACS (all years), WorldCat for dissertations and theses (all years) and ClinicalTrials.gov (all years).
Selection criteria Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating supplementary feeding in comparison to a control group (no intervention or a placebo such as food with a very low number of nutrients and calories) in children from birth to five years of age in LMIC.
Main results We included eight RCTs (n = 1243 children) that were at relatively high risk of bias.
We found high levels of clinical heterogeneity in the participants, interventions and outcome measures across studies.
Nevertheless, in order to quantify pooled effects of supplementary feeding, we decided to combine studies according to prespecified characteristics.
These were the children's age (younger or older than 24 months), their nutritional status at baseline (stunted or wasted, or not stunted or wasted) and the duration of the intervention (less or more than 12 months).