Abstract

AGUADO QUINTERO, Luis Fernando. A Food Non - Consumption Index for Colombian Children. Rev.latinoam.cienc.soc.niñez juv [online]. 2009, vol.7, n.2, pp.735-760. ISSN 1692-715X.

The use of statistical indicators to measure and monitor childhood welfare has become an emerging research area. Accordingly, the International Society for Childhood Indicators (Isci) and of the journal entitled Child Indicators Research were founded in 2007. This situation has also been strengthened with the yearly publication of the State of the World's Children (Unicef) since 1980, and the Convention on the Children's Rights after 1989. In this paper, a composite indicator is built with the aim to approach factors that reflect the non-food consumption by children in 24 Colombian provinces in 2005. This index integrates five partial indicators through the analysis of the principal components. The data comes from the Demographic and Health Survey, the National Survey on the Nutritional Situation and the National Census on population and Housing. The index offers some methodological Un índice de no consumo de alimentos en la niñez para Colombia advantages: i) it identifies indicators with a childhood perspective, ii) it analyzes territorial inequalities beyond the national average and, iii) it is itself a tool to define scopes, identify undesirable situations and to promote children's rights. The results indicate that the children inhabiting the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts evidence a critical situation with reference to the non-consumption of food. That is to say, at territorial level there are inequalities concerning the access to a key good to foster the positive effects resulting from the accumulation of human capital and the generation of opportunities for children.

Keywords : childhood welfare; children's rights; composite indicator; principal components; Colombia.

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