Introduction:

The balanced energy state in the human body allows maintaining a nutritional and health status; excessive or small intakes of food modify the homeostasis and produce diseases.

Objective:

To determine the association between energy balance and nutritional state in children from educational institutions of Huanchaco District, La Libertad, Peru.

Methods:

A cross-sectional quantitative study was carried out in 203 children from 3 to 5 years old in the period from April to June 2014. It was assessed the nutritional state with the indexes height/age, weight/age, weight/height using child growth standards of the World Health Organization 2006. The energy balance was measured with the adequacy of energy intake in relation to their estimated energy requirement, expressed as a percentage. Chi-square statistical test was applied with a significance level of 5 %.

Results:

The indexes to assess the nutritional state were predominantly normal. The energy balance for boys and girls of 3 years old was 123.75 ± 46.97% and 125.82 ± 13.01 % of their requirement respectively; in children of 4 years old it was 109.90 ± 23.17% and 104.69 ± 20.96 %, respectively; and finally in 5 years old boys it was 105.15 ± 24.97 % and in girls a negative energy balance of 86.39 ± 11.99 %. There is a highly significant association (p< 0.01) between the nutritional state and the energy balance.

Conclusions:

The energy balance with positive trend predisposes toward obesity for the indexes weight/height and weight/age, and the balanced or positive condition to a normal nutritional state according to height/age.

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