Private garden exposure and public park access in relation to type-2 diabetes incidence: a UK Biobank cohort study.

Acute malnutrition, a form of undernutrition, is a biological coping mechanism to disease, infections, or inadequate dietary intake characterized by a rapid deterioration in nutritional status. According to cross sectional surveys, an estimated 45 million children suffer from acute malnutrition (AM) at any given time – a figure that underestimates the true burden of AM, as incidence is not accounted for [, ]. Over nine million children under five years were treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in 2024 globally []. Outpatient therapeutic feeding programs use weight-based dosage of ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF) to provide the full nutritional needs of children with SAM, with one or more sachets corresponding to 150–185 kilocalories per kilogram of the child’s weight given to the caregiver to administer at home [–]. In addition to RUTF, these programs provide systematic growth monitoring of height, weight, mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC), health checkups, and contact with a health care worker (HCW) at a health site typically on a weekly basis []. Most children treated for SAM are declared recovered within two to three months from the start of treatment [, ]. However, relapse to AM has been shown to affect many children who have been declared recovered [–] ranging from 21.9% to 63.1% within six months in a recent three-country study [] and up to 75.8% according to a meta-analysis []. Higher weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), MUAC, and weight-for-age z-score (WAZ) at discharge are associated with lower risk of SAM relapse, with some studies documenting higher frequency of illness episodes per month of follow-up and severe food insecurity post-discharge as risk factors [, , , ].