Childhood Malnutrition

This book covers a wide range of malnutrition manifestations across the globe. Malnutrition in any form has a very important, long-term impact on children's development, health, quality of life, and well-being. It is an emerging public health problem that needs to be addressed through actions and policies.

           This Special Issue opens with an overview of global malnutrition data, indicating the importance of the problem. It is followed by three very interesting articles on eating disorders: a systematic review of the correlation between vegetarian diets and eating disorders in adolescents and young adults, a description of the nutritional risks among adolescent athletes with disordered eating, and a systematic review of the neuroimaging findings in adolescents and young adults with anorexia nervosa.

           These articles are followed by a comprehensive review on the nutritional status of pediatric cancer patients at diagnosis as well as its correlations with treatment, clinical outcome, and the long-term growth and health of survivors, which highlight the emerging problem of nutritional assessment and advice among pediatric cancer patients, including at diagnosis and during and after therapy.

           The need for more extensive assessment of the nutritional status among children in developing countries is explored in the next two articles: a presentation of anthropometry measurements among Nepali children institutionalized in orphanages and a report on the nutritional status, diet, and intestinal parasites in hosted Saharawi children.

           The next article is focused on the development of a disease-specific tool for determining malnutrition risk in pediatric and adolescent cystic fibrosis outpatients in Greece.            The two articles that follow describe aspects of childhood obesity in two Mediterranean countries, where the sociodemographic determinants of childhood obesity in Spain are discussed in detail. The Special Issue closes with an article describing the effects of nutrition and physical activity habits and perceptions on the body mass index (BMI) of adolescents in Greece.

           I encourage readers to explore this Special Issue in order to learn more about the different aspects of malnutrition. Finally, I would like to thank everyone who contributed, including the patients and families that took part in the programs and studies presented in this book.

Tonia Vassilakou

Special Issue Editor