Talk:Stunted growth

India is highly diverse, racialy and enthnicaly
Is that why India is on the list ? Genetically average height varies from state t state. I think there is no other country as diverse (racialy) as India. I think including India in the list is a statistical blunder. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.61.16.227 (talk) 18:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC)

World Health Organization
The WHO also using stunting as measurement for undernutrition. According to WHO stunting is when "height-for-age [is] less than -2 SD of the WHO Child Growth Standards median". It would be nice if this could be worked into this article.--Asdirk 16:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Other Causes?
Growing up, I'd always heard that coffee (presumably caffeine, more specifically) and cigarettes can stunt the growth of children. Is this true? And if so, shouldn't it be in the article too? MarkoOhNo (talk) 07:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

More information about lack of sanitation as a cause
As I have just written on the Talk page of the malnutrition page, I would like to see a bit more reference made to lack of sanitation as a cause for stunting; and that stunting is nowadays being used as an indicator for the level of sanitation in a community (in developing countries). There is also thing called the "Asian enigma" - it is the puzzle why Indian children are more stunted than children in sub-Saharan Africa despite having access to more calories (and Indian Hindu children more stunted than Indian Muslim children). The answer that has been put forward is because they ingest more pathogens in faeces due to more open defecation and denser living conditions in India (and Hindus fare worse than Muslims). See: http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/06/open-defecation-solves-the-child-mortality-puzzle-among-indian-muslims/#p3 and discussion here: http://forum.susana.org/forum/categories/26-health-hygiene-and-disability-issues/8882-open-defecation-solves-the-lower-child-mortality-puzzle-among-indian-muslims Wondering what people with a medical background have to say about this (my background is in sanitary engineering)? Might be useful to add something from those findings to this article. EvM-Susana (talk) 21:42, 8 November 2014 (UTC)

Looking for better photos
I have deleted this photo: "Children and a nurse attendant at a Nigerian orphanage in the late 1960s. Notice four of the children with gray-blond hair, a symptom of the protein-deficiency disease kwashiorkor. Those with Kwashiorkor also show signs of thinning hair or "Flag sign", edema, inadequate growth, and weight loss."



Firstly it is confusing many issues in one (kwashiorkor), secondly it is from the 1960s, I don't know if it was meant to show the historical perspective. But when you look more closely, you see that all the children in the front row are naked. I really don't think such a photo is necessary in the article on "stunting", it perpetuates that image of Africa... I will look for other photos. A photo from India would be very appropriate as so much stunting occurs there. A photo showing children in an environment "at risk" like the photos I have inserted further down in the article could also be the lead photo. I actually liked having the global map of stunting as the lead image. Or a photo that show a group of children of the same age with large height differences would also be good. EvM-Susana (talk) 07:51, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Images are hard to find and thus we often use less than perfect ones. If you have a better image of stunting agree we should use it. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:44, 13 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I would prefer an image of stunted growth of children in the lead, rather than a map. If I found a suitable one (haven't found one yet), would you be fine with me moving the map to elsewhere in the article or so you prefer to have a map for the lead? I think for a lay person an image would be better than a map, for the lead. EMsmile (talk) 21:23, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Growth Hormone?
Does Growth Hormone deficiency cause stunting? --Waqqashanafi (talk) 08:05, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Good question. If yes, it should be added under causes. But I am not sure, would have to do some research about it. EvMsmile (talk) 13:00, 27 August 2016 (UTC)
 * Thus one thing missing from this article is differential diagnosis, as growth hormone deficiency and growth hormone insensitivity are dwarfism conditions distinct from the undernutrition and lack of sanitation that this article describes. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 21:20, 15 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Could you please add this information in, User:Damian Yerrick? I don't know enough about it, otherwise I would do it myself. EMsmile (talk) 04:39, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I would, but I too am unfamiliar with the literature, and I am unaffiliated with any institution likely to subscribe to the relevant literature. --Damian Yerrick (talk) 02:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Suggested expansion. Looking for your valuable inputs.
I would like to contribute to the expansion of the stunting page. Such a relevant global problem that requires more and more attention to be better understood and addressed. I am an MD and nutrition specialist with experience with MSF, UN and Johns Hopkins. Which areas do you think need expansion and which new sections could be created? I was thinking about expanding the global epidemiology section, adding content on the relationship between stunting and other forms of malnutrition, and discussing current global efforts to address stunting (e.g. scaling up nutrition movement). I welcome your inputs. Thanks! Audaces~itwiki (talk) 21:11, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Sure Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:36, 28 November 2016 (UTC)
 * User:Audaces~itwiki have moved the additions to your talk page. They need some more work. A bunch of the urls do not work and there is not enough info for me to figure out some of the sources. Also please read WP:MEDMOS. Best Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 19:02, 15 December 2016 (UTC)


 * All updated as requested with more detailed referencing. Thanks for the collaboration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Audaces~itwiki (talk • contribs) 02:14, 2 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your work on the article stunted growth, User:Audaces~itwiki. I've also just written on your talk page, I hope you saw it? I hope you'll do more work on Wikipedia because so much still remains to be done! Could you also add more about the connection with lack of sanitation, diarrhea and environmental enteropathy? See also here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Environmental_enteropathy I've gone over some of the new sections that you had added and done a bit of formatting, e.g. there were some huge paragraphs that were actually bullet point lists or had sub-section headings. User:Doc James, are you now happy with the re-inserted text? EvMsmile (talk) 21:36, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Possible external link
I don't want to add directly since I work with IHME, but wondering if other eds would consider this link useful in the External Links section: Child Growth Failure Visualization. It will be updated later this year with estimates for all low- and middle-income countries, still at the same link.

ARSeattle (talk) 21:24, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * That's OK, I see you have added it now. Are there any maps from that website that could be included in the article? Are they CC-BY SA licence? EMsmile (talk) 04:38, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

In some lines, this article is written like a story or a news article.
Take example of this line:

"This equates to a relative reduction of 36, 17 and 39% respectively, indicating that Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have displayed much larger improvements than Africa, which needs to address this issue with much more effort if it is to win the battle against a problem that has been crippling its development for decades."

Is it necessary to write all that? Wouldn't a simple acknowledgement that Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have done better than Africa been enough? I'd rather have it trimmed to just "This equates to a relative reduction of 36, 17 and 39% respectively, indicating that Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean have displayed much larger improvements than Africa."

It's not just this line, there are many other such lines with relatively unnecessary text. This was just the one with most contrast to the rest of the text that I found. This article could really be cleaned up in my opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMa64o (talk • contribs) 12:15, 4 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Global Poverty and Practice
— Assignment last updated by MadisonLindke (talk) 21:41, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Add Philippine under Examples
As a country with high stunting rates, I would like to add the Philippines under Examples. McGSoc (talk) 20:21, 4 May 2024 (UTC)