NUTRTIONAL STATUS OF PRYMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN: THE ELITE AND THE LOW
SOCIOECONOMIC GROUPS
INTRODUCTION:
Nutritional
status is an important determinant of growth. Atinmo and Akinyele (1983) defined it as the extent to which the customary diet of any population group has been able to meet their
nutritional requirement. This survey was conducted in 1999 as a graduate thesis by ADESOLA SUNDAY, of the department of Human Nutrition, Faculty of Public Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria.
OBJECTIVES:
To assess the nutritional status of primary I school children.
To determine
socioeconomic influence of the parents on the nutritional status of their children.
To suggest ways of improving their nutrition situation
ABSTRACT:
Two hundred school children (aged 6years) were sampled both from the high socioeconomic group (elite) and the low socioeconomic group (non-elite) in Ibadan, Oyo State of Nigeria. The nutritional status was assessed using weight and height and a few socioeconomic parameters.
The results showed that the mean height and weight of the elite children were significantly higher than that of the non-elite children.
Using the parameter – weight for age, 67% of the elite and 35% of the non elite children have normal weight for age, 33% of the elite and 65% of the non-elite children have from mild to severe reduction.
Using height for age, 69% of the elite and 33% of the non-elite children have normal height for age, while 31% and 67% of the elite and non-elite group respectively fell between mild to severe height reduction.
Using weight for height, 74% of the elite and 64% of the non-elite school children have normal weight for height, while 26% and 36% of the elite and the non-elite school children respectively have from mild to severe wasting.
DISCUSSION:
It was discovered that factors like parents’ income, parents’ education; played important role in determining the nutritional status of these school children. The higher the income the better the nutritional status; also the more skilled the occupation of parents the better the nutritional status of these children. Others like breakfast, school feeding, snacks, infectious diseases e.t.c, are also relevant to nutritional status.
In Nigeria, school feeding and de-worming programmes have also been introduced of recent to combat malnutrition among school children.