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Anthropometric measures are generally used to construct indicators of risk or nutritional damage. The most commonly used are weight, height, brachial perimeter, even when others can be incorporated (head circumference, skin folds, etc.). The measurements are interpreted according to age or related to each other: weight for height (P-T), weight for age (P-E) and height for age (T-E). These parameters can be used separately or together while the combination of indicators will allow a more real approach to the nutritional situation. These anthropometric indicators have been widely used in the nutritional assessment of populations and communities.
Another nutritional status indicator is the clinical examination, a practical method based on the detection of certain changes that are supposed to be related to inadequate nutrition and that can be seen in external epithelial tissues, such as skin, eyes, hair and the oral mucosa or in organs close to the surface of the body, such as parotids, thyroid or testicles. These signs often appear late and are not specific to the lack of a nutrient, although they are usually useful, as they allow to warn about the possible existence of various deficiencies, therefore, it is recommended that these findings be accompanied by laboratory tests relevant. It is important to emphasize that nutritional deficiencies are recognized more by biochemical tests than by clinical evaluations.
One could say that nutritional status is closely associated with the socioeconomic environment in which populations and individuals function. This environmental complexity of the territory occupied by individuals enables the recognition of homogeneous spaces inhabited by similar social groups, in which urban equipment and the provision of services, establish the particular conditions that determine the quality of life of the settled population. As urbanization progresses, heterogeneities arise in the areas that make up the city as well as situations of inequality among its individuals, which are masked but can be elucidated from social, nutritional and health indicators. An example of this is that the indicators show that the infant mortality rate is more related to the lack of access to drinking water and to the excrement system than to the number of families below the poverty line or the availability of health services
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