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Nutritional anemia is an important nutritional problem affecting large population groups in most developing countries. Nutritional anemia is caused by the absence of any dietary essential involed in hemoglobin formation or by poor absorption of these dietary components. The most likely causes are lack of dietary iron, and folate, vitamin B_{12} and high qualify protein. Anemia is considered to be a late mainfeastation of nutritional deficiencies, and even mild anemia is not the earilest sign of such a deficiency. Therefore, the object of therapy is to correct underlying deficiency rather than merely its manifestation. Iron deficiency anemia is generally much the most common form of anemia. And it is very prevalent particularly in pregnant women and young children, especially under five year of life. According to the rapid growth rate of infants, dietary iron should he provided for infants over three months of age in adequate amounts for the synthesis of hemoglobin required by the increasing blood volume and for the demands of newly formed cells. The principal causes of iron deficiency anemia are an inadequate dietary iron content, interference with absorption of iron from the intestine, excessive losses of iron from the body, disturbance of iron metabolism by infection, and social and cultural environments. The present study is planned to obtain informations concerning nutritional anemia through anthropometric and biochemical determinations for the assessment of nutriture in pre-school children. Determination was taken in 226 pre-school children in ruraI arae in 1968, 122 pre-school children in 1970, and 1526 hospitalized pre-school children in 1970. The results of this study are as follows; (1) According to Iowa Malnutrition Borderline (85 percentile) for weight, the proportions of underweighed pre-school boys and girls in rural area were 47.2% and 46.2% in1968, and were 36.1% and 51.8% in 1970. According to Iowa Malnutrition Borderline for height, the proportions of underheight boys and girls in rural area were 30.5% and 33.7%, and were 26.2% and 21.8% in 1970. Malnutrition scores of underweight for height values of boys and girls in rural area were 19.3 and 17.3 in 1968, and the scores of boys and girls were 15.6 and 15.5 in 1970. (2) The mean hemoglobin values of boys and girls in rural area were 11.2{pm}1.8g/100ml;and;11.4{pm}1.6g/100ml$ in 1968. In 1970, the mean values of boys and girls in rural area were 11.3{pm}1.3g/100ml;and;11.7{pm}2.4g/100ml. The mean hemoglobin values of hospitalized boys and girls were 11.9{pm}2.2g/100ml;and;11.7{pm}2.4g/100ml in 1970. It is found that 92 of 215 children (42.7%) in rural area had concentrations of hemoglobin less than 11.0g/100ml in 1968. In 1970, 55 of 121 children (45.4%) in rural area and 559 of 1526 hospitalized children (36.6%) had concentrations of hemoglobin less than 11.0g/100ml. (3) The mean hematocrit levels of hospitalized boys and girls were 35{pm}26.8%;and;35.4{pm}6.4% in 1970. And 443 of 1334 hospitalized children (33.2%) had hematocrit values below 33%. (4) The average mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration levels of hospitalized boys and girls were 32.4{pm}2.2;and;32.3{pm}2.2 in 1970. And 1016 of 1352 hospitalized children (75.1%) had the mean corpuscular hemoglobin values below 34. (5) The mean iron values of young children in rural area and hospitalized children were 62.0{pm}6.3{mu}g/100ml;and;60.7{pm}22.8{mu}g/100ml. The proportions of anemia cases below 50{mu}g/100ml in rural area was 37.9%, and 34.3% in hospitalized children. (6) The mean total iron binding capacity of young children in rural area was 376{pm}57.88{mu}g/100ml,;and;342.2{pm}6.15{mu}g/100ml in hospitalized children. (7) The average transferrin saturation percentage of young children in rural area was 16.9{pm}4.7%,;and;18.0{pm}8.4% in hospitalized children. The proportions of anemia cases below 15% of young chi1dren in rural area and hospitalized children were 48.3% and 41.2%. Therefore, authors wish to recommend that the following further studies should be undertaken: (1) Standardization of simplied laboratory examination of nutritional anemia. (2) The prevalence of nutritional anemia and the requirements of iron, folate, and vitamin B_{12} of pre-school children. (3) The content and absorption of iron in Korean food. (4) The pathogenesis of nutritional anemia and prevention of parasitic disease. (5) Maternal health and nutrition education.
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