In Guatemala, approximately half of all children under the age of five are stunted. Therefore, Guatemalan health centers prescribe zinc as part of their remedial programs for stunting. However, the status of this program remains unclear, and its effectiveness must be verified. The purpose of this study was to understand the current state of improvement in nutrition, dietary practices, and mothers’ awareness, behavior, and knowledge regarding their children’s nutritional status as a result of this program for reducing stunting as well as to clarify the factors related to the improvement of children’s nutritional status. The participants were mothers (115 mothers) of children under 5 years old who were diagnosed as stunted (Z-score of World Health Organization height-for-age: −2 standard deviations or less) during infant health checkups conducted by health centers. The questionnaire included questions regarding mothers’ basic attributes, children’s dietary status, mothers’ awareness and behavior (awareness of children’s stunting and zinc medication status), and mothers’ dietary knowledge. Children’s nutritional status was classified into three categories (improved, unchanged, and deteriorated), and the relationship between survey items and children’s nutritional status was analyzed. The results showed that only 16.5% of the children showed improvement, less than half of the children took zinc daily, the children’s diet was biased toward “Cereals” and “Legumes, nuts, and seeds,” and the mothers’ dietary knowledge was low. Factors associated with improved nutrition were maternal mother’s schooling status (p < 0.05), floor type (dirt or cement) (p < 0.01), and livestock (p < 0.01). These results suggest the importance of prioritizing nutrition education and collaborating with other fields to improve the food environment from various perspectives.

Purpose: Chronic ankle instability (CAI) often involves proprioceptive deficits, but the influence of ankle joint alignment on proprioception during dynamic tasks remains unclear.

Methods: 20 university students (12 with CAI, 8 controls) performed a stepping-down task onto a tilting platform that presented four inversion angles (10°, 12°, 14°, 16°) across three ankle joint alignments: inversion (INV), plantarflexion-eversion-abduction (PEB), and dorsiflexion-inversion-adduction (DID). Area under the curve (AUC) scores represented proprioceptive discrimination ability. Two-way mixed ANOVA compared AUC scores across groups and alignments, while Pearson’s correlation examined relationships between Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) scores and AUC.

Results: No significant differences in AUC scores were found between CAI and control groups (p=0.33). However, a significant main effect for ankle joint alignment was observed (p<0.01), with higher AUC scores in the DID alignment compared to PEB alignment (p<0.05). A moderate positive correlation between IdFAI and AUC scores was found only in the CAI group under PEB alignment (r=0.61, p=0.035).

Conclusion: Ankle joint alignment significantly influences proprioceptive discrimination, with better performance in dorsiflexed positions. The absence of group differences suggests that proprioceptive impairments in CAI may be influenced by task-specific demands and centrally mediated adaptations. These findings highlight the importance of considering joint alignment when designing proprioception assessments and rehabilitation interventions, and the need to standardize proprioception assessment methods in both clinical and sports settings.