Like in previous studies, our study found that all undernutrition
statuses were more prominent in LICs than
in MICs [1,10,33]. Higher prominence of undernutrition
in LICs than MICs is likely due to the predominance of
the determinants of undernutrition [34,35]. These include
food insecurity, poor feeding practices, high burden
of diseases, and other socio-economic disadvantages
which are more common in poor settings [35]. On the
other hand, food abundance, sedentary lifestyles and
urbanization have been responsible for the opposite extreme
of nutrition—overweight and obesity, a trend that
is on the rise in MICs [9,10]. In addition, an increase in
GDP per capita was associated with a decrease in the
undernutrition prevalence while it was associated with
an increase in prevalence of overweight. Also, such economic
development may bring about increase in the
number of educated caregivers who can impact children
nutrition. We found an association between net school
enrolments with the reduction of the prevalence of undernutrition.
With rapid economic development and demographic
transition, the magnitudes of undernutrition tend