Narrowing urban-suburban rural disparities in physical growth among children in China: findings from the 5th national survey in 2015.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have reported a narrowing tendency in urban-suburban rural differences for height, but almost no tendency of narrowing for weight in Chinese children between 1975-2005.

AIM: To examine urban-suburban rural disparities for both height and weight in a recent 10-year period.

SUBJECTS AND METHODS: A representative sample of 161,643 children under 7 years old was obtained from the 5th national survey conducted in urban and suburban rural areas of the nine cities in China in 2015. Trends in urban-suburban rural differences were assessed from 1975-2015.

RESULTS: Generally, urban boys and girls were taller or heavier than their suburban rural counterparts. By 2015, there were almost no obvious differences for urban-suburban rural height differences for children under 3. Urban-suburban rural weight differences narrowed sharply in the 10-year period. There were no obvious differences for urban-suburban rural height differences among the 3rd, 50th and 97th percentiles; however, the weight differences at the 97th percentile were larger than at the 50th percentile for children over 3.

CONCLUSION: The narrowing urban-suburban rural disparities in China suggest the physical growth inequality may be eliminated, along with the sustained improvement of socioeconomic status and the acceleration of urbanisation process in suburban rural areas.