Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

CDC disclaimer

The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ethics approval

Each of the original surveys used in this narrative review received ethics approval and participant consent prior to data collection. The Ethics board of the Institute of Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP-Guatemala) and Ministerio de Salud Pública y Asistencia Social (MSPAS), approved the Epidemiological Health and Nutrition Surveillance System (SIVESNU, Spanish acronym) data collection cycles. For the two Guatemala demographic health surveys (ENSMI 1995 and ENSMI 2008, Spanish acronym), the ICF-International Institutional Review Board ethics committee and the Guatemala MSPAS, ethics Committee approved the survey protocols, and finally, the Guatemala Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) and World Bank ethics committees approved the Living Standards Measurement Study (LSMS).

Note added to the proof

SIVESNU datasets for 2015, 2016, 2017/8, 2018/19 cycles are available at: https://www.siinsan.gob.gt/siinsan/monitoreo-y-evaluacion/

Data for Lee et al. (2010) are available at: https://microdata.worldbank.org/index.php/catalog/586

Data for Garrett et al 2003 are available at: https://www.dhsprogram.com/data/available-datasets.cfm