Screening and assessment tools for pediatric malnutrition

Purpose of reviewThe ideal measures for screening and assessing undernutrition in children remain a point of discussion in literature. This review aims to provide an overview of recent advances in the nutritional screening and assessment methods in children.Recent findingsThis review focuses on two major topics that emerged in literature since 2015: the practical endorsement of the new definition for pediatric undernutrition, with a focus on anthropometric measurements and the search for a consensus on pediatric nutritional screening tools in different settings.SummaryFew analytical tools exist for the assessment of the nutritional status in children. The subjective global nutritional assessment has been validated by anthropometric as well as clinical outcome parameters. Nutritional screening can help in selecting patients that benefit the most from a full nutritional assessment. Two new screening tools have been developed for use in a general (mixed) hospital population, and one for a population of children with cancer. The value of screening tools in different disease-specific and outpatient pediatric populations remains to be proven.