ReviewNutrients2022
Understanding Sex Differences in Childhood Undernutrition: A Narrative Review.
Review in Nutrients, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 58 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
58 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stunting and its predictors among children aged 6-59 months in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Anthropometric deficits and the associated risk of death by age and sex in children aged 6-59 months: A meta-analysis.Maternal & child nutrition · 2023Pooled it
- Household Food Insecurity, Growth and Development of Preschool Children: Evidence From Rural Pakistan.Maternal & child nutrition · 2025Trial
- The gut microbiota in malnutrition.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2026Review
- Patterns of the triple burden of childhood malnutrition in Ecuador by age, sex, ethnicity, and poverty: a cross-sectional population survey.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2026Article
- Malnutrition trends in displaced Rohingya children from 2017 to 2024: a comprehensive 7-year repeated cross-sectional analysis.BMJ global health · 2026Article
- Prevalence and factors of concurrent wasting and stunting among children aged 6 to 59 months in Cambodia: a cross-sectional study using the Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey 2021-2022.Clinical nutrition research · 2026Article
- Article
- Socio-Economic Inequalities of Childhood Stunting in Rwanda: Time Trend Analysis of Demographic and Health Surveys, 2000 to 2019.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2026Article
- Prevalence and determinants of low birth weight and its association with child malnutrition in Bangladesh.BMC nutrition · 2026Article
- From Insult to Injury: Exploring the Associations Between Severe Malnutrition in Childhood, Rehabilitation Weight Gain and Adult Adiposity in a Prospective Cohort Study.Maternal & child nutrition · 2026Article
- Determinants of malnutrition among under-five children in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional analytical study comparing multinomial logistic and proportional odds regression models using MICS 2019 data.Journal of health, population, and nutrition · 2026Article
- Perioperative hypoalbuminemia predicts postoperative survival: a large cohort study with global context.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Trend and socioeconomic inequalities in childhood underweight in Iran from 2000 to 2030.Journal of diabetes and metabolic disorders · 2025Article
- Caracterización y factores asociados a la malnutrición en menores de 5 años en el municipio de Neiva, Colombia.Global health promotion · 2025Article
- Determinants of stunting among under-five children in Amhara and Oromia regions, Ethiopia: the linear quantile regression analysis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Age- and sex-dependent associations between the number of older siblings and early-life survival in pre-industrial humans.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Child Height in Low- and Middle-Income Countries.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Prevalence and Factors Associated with Anaemia and Undernutrition Among Children Aged 6-24 Months in Rural Tanzania.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2025Article
- Enhancing Resistance toNutrients · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors at 7 institutions in 6 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Complementing a recent systematic review and meta-analysis which showed that boys are more likely to be wasted, stunted, and underweight than girls, we conducted a narrative review to explore which early life mechanisms might underlie these sex differences. We addressed different themes, including maternal and newborn characteristics, immunology and endocrinology, evolutionary biology, care practices, and anthropometric indices to explore potential sources of sex differences in child undernutrition. Our review found that the evidence on why sex differences occur is limited but that a complex interaction of social, environmental, and genetic factors likely underlies these differences throughout the life cycle. Despite their bigger size at birth and during infancy, in conditions of food deprivation, boys experience more undernutrition from as early as the foetal period. Differences appear to be more pronounced in more severe presentations of undernutrition and in more socioeconomically deprived contexts. Boys are more vulnerable to infectious disease, and differing immune and endocrine systems appear to explain some of this disadvantage. Limited evidence also suggests that different sociological factors and care practices might exert influence and have the potential to exacerbate or reverse observed differences. Further research is needed to better understand sex differences in undernutrition and the implications of these for child outcomes and prevention and treatment programming.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.