Prevalence of Malnutrition among Under-Five-Year-Old Pupils of Public Primary Schools: A Case Study of Osun West Senatorial District

Abstract

Introduction: Malnutrition is a serious threat to the development of young children and the nation and if not tackled on time can lead to the untimely death of the affected children. Adequate data are needed to enable policymakers develop sustainable strategies to stem this problem that has become a global public health issue. The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among under-five year pupils in public primary schools in the Osun West Senatorial District.

Methods: This is a descriptive school-based cross-sectional study. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to obtain data from respondents. A portable stadiometer was used to measure height, while a bathroom weighing scale was used to measure the weight of the respondents. Stunting, wasting, and BMI were calculated using WHO Anthroplus software and were exported to SPSS 20.0 version for descriptive and inferential analyses. Chi-square was used to analyse categorical data. Statistical Significance was set at p< 0.05.

Results: Of 300 participants included in the study, 260(86.7%) were underweight (malnourished) while 40(13.3%) of them were obese.  About 296(98.7%) were moderately stunted while very few {4(1.3%)} of them were severely stunted, 232(77.3%) were moderately wasted and 68(22.7%) were severely wasted. Risk factors of malnutrition indices were age, father’s occupation, family type, ethnicity, and dietary intake.

Conclusion: There is a very high rate of malnutrition in Osun West Senatorial District. There is a need to put in place program that will improve the nutrition of students before it affects their academic performance.