A program aimed at helping children with malnutrition has assisted about 400,000 youngsters in 300 underdeveloped counties in 21 provinces since 2012, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Chen Chunming, a consultant at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the rate of delayed growth among children under 5 in rural areas - with lack of nutrition an important cause - was 10 percent in 2010.

The rate in more underdeveloped areas rose to 20 percent, Chen said.

Meanwhile, the rate of anemia among children aged between 6 months and 1 year in rural areas was 28.2 percent in 2010.

To deal with the impact, the then ministry of health launched the program in 2012 to improve the nutrition of children aged between 6 months and 2 years. The program gives children a bag of 10 grams of soybean powder supplemented with minerals and vitamins each day, Chen said.

This meets 65 percent of a child's daily basic nutrition needs, helping to ease the problem of delayed growth within two years, which can cause irreversible adverse effects.

Inadequate nutrition among children, especially in rural areas, is a problem China must deal with, Chen said.

Ji Chengye, a professor at the Institute of Child and Adolescent Health at Peking University's School of Public Health, said the per capita income or amount spent on food is an indication of how serious the problem in a given area.

The smaller the figure, the bigger the chance that the local children have inadequate nutrition, Ji said.

"Lack of nutrition among children is much worse in rural areas and places with lower incomes, such as western China, where people eat what they grow and raise. They don't know and don't have access to the nutrition their children need, such as dietary supplements," he said.

Inadequate nutrition can last throughout childhood and stunt growth, reproductive ability, immunity and stamina, Ji said.

"For example, we found in previous surveys that in some rural areas in Guizhou province, girls remained shorter than 1.5 meters at age 13 or 14," he said.

Conversely, overnutrition among children is an emerging problem in some areas.

The proportion of overweight and obese children below 5 years old was 5.3 percent in cities and 3.9 percent in rural areas in 2005.

In 2010, the figures had risen to 8.5 percent and 6.5 percent, according to the Report on Nutritional Development of Chinese Children aged 0 to 6 issued by the then ministry of health in 2012.

Overweight and obese children is not confined to urban areas, but is emerging in rural areas, the report said.

Chen said, "Although obesity is more common in children aged between 6 and 12 in relatively developed cities, it has also become more obvious in some rural areas where the economy has developed fast."

"Child obesity is a complicated problem. You can't simply restrict children's nutritional intake, because controlling it inappropriately when they need much nutrition to grow may affect their height," she said.

wangqingyun@chinadaily.com.cn