Malnutrición proteico-energética en ni？os menores de 5 a？os

with the objective of finding out the magnitude of protein-energetic malnutrition in harlem (pinar del rio province) and of identifying some risk factors, a descriptive cross-sectional study was performed from january to december, 2004. thirty eight children, who presented weight figures for size and age below 3rd percentile, were studied. a malnutrition index of 18,4% was found; over 1 year-old children were the most affected accounting for 21,12%. mild malnutrition predominated (89,5%), with no difference in sex. it was observed that 71% of the mothers of undernourished children were at risky age at the time of pregnancy. children with risky birthweight prevailed (2 500-3 000g). seventy one percent of children had been exclusively breast-fed for less than 3 months. malnutrition is a health problem in harlem, pínar del río province, with respect to the rest of the country. the detected risk factors were early cessation of breast-feeding, pregnancy at extreme ages of fertility and birthweight from 2 500 to 3 000g. these results allowed designing intervention strategies for this territory in order to improve this indicator.