7 respectively. The World Health Organization adopts US National Child Health Survey (NCHS) anthropometric data as the international reference to estimate its malnutrition indicators. To be comparable with WHO global estimates and other similar studies this paper follows the same methodology.

The three dimensions of malnutrition are interrelated. This is shown in Figures 2 and 3 which map the incidence of wasting against I/A and W/A Z-scores for Bangladesh and Brazil, respectively. Children located towards the right end along the x-axis have a high H/A score (i.e. are tall), while those towards the left end have a low H/A score (i.e. are short). Those to the left of -2Z line are classified as stunted. Children towards the top end of the y-axis have a high W/A score (i.e. are heavy), while those towards the bottom end have a low W/A score (i.e. are light). Those below -2Z line are classified as underweight. Children at the bottom-left corner (the framed area) of the figures are both stunted and underweight. Since wasting is reflected in a low W/H score, and since the axes already capture weight and height (albeit adjusted for age), we can also speculate where wasted children lie in the figures. Children who are both light and short (i.e. children in the bottom-left quadrant) will tend to have W/H scores in the normal range. These children, some of whom will be both stunted and underweight, will be most unlikely to be wasted (i.e. to have a very low W/H score). Likewise, children who are both heavy and tall (i.e. children in the top right quadrant) will tend to have W/H scores in the normal range. For the most part, wasted children will be those in the bottom right quadrant-children who are fairly tall but also fairly light in weight.

In Figure 2 the oval circle diagonal to the x- and y-axes capturing most wasted children lies outside the framed area. Thus, it makes it clear most children who are both stunted and underweight are not wasted, i.e., children can be stunted and underweight, and be underweight and wasted, but are unlikely to be stunted _and_ wasted. In Figure 3 the principal cluster lies more to the direction of south-west than the one in Figure 2, indicating higher incidence of stunting and underweight in Bangladesh than in Brazil. Although there are more cases of simultaneous stunting, underweight and wasting in Bangladesh, only 9% of children fall in this category. We would therefore not expect to see a country with high inequalities in all three dimensions of malnutrition.

# COMPARISONS **OF MALNUTRITION LEVELS WITH OTHER SURVEYS**

Malnutrition indicators computed along the lines indicated in section III were checked against WHO Global Database on Child Growth and Malnutrition to ensure their comparability [26]. Table 2 shows that the discrepancies between WHO reference values and our estimates are within +/-10% for most cases. Exceptions are: Egypt (stunting) and Romania (stunting) probably due to the different survey years from reference survey years; Guatemala (stunting) and the Philippines (all) most likely attributable to the regionally representative surveys; and Nicaragua (stunting) and Pakistan (wasting) possibly because of dropped observations due to insufficient consumption information.