Contributory Factors to Nutritional Status Among Under Five Children in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Applied Science (IJRIAS) | Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2021|ISSN 2454-6194

Contributory Factors to Nutritional Status Among Under Five Children in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State

Dr. Samuel, G. K.¹, Korubo Orinaemi Eldred².
¹Department of Human Kinetics Health and Safety Studies, Ignatius Ajuru University of Education, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
²Department of Community Health, College of Health Science and Management Technology, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Abstract: This work investigated contributory factors to nutritional status among under five children in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State. Five research questions and hypotheses were formulated to achieve the objectives of the study. The design of the study is descriptive survey research design. The population of the study comprised of all children one to five years (1-5 years) of age and their mothers. A sample size of 400 was used for the study. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select the participants for the study. The instrument for the study was a pre-tested structured questionnaire contributory factors to poor nutritional among under five children with a reliability coefficient of 0.70, was used to collect data. That analysis were carried out using percentage and Chi-square. The results showed that The result showed a significant relationship between mother’s education, socio-economic status, occupation, religion and nutritional status among under five children in Ogba-Egbema-Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State (p<0.05). Based on the findings it was concluded that malnutrition among children aged 1-5 years was influenced by socio-economic status, age, religion, educational qualification and occupation were found to influence nutritional status of children aged 1-5 years. It was recommended that Primary health care personnel in health facilities should educate women on the proteinous and highly nutritious foods available to them in their environment particularly the ones which are cheap to enhance the consumption of balance diet even among those with a low wealth index

I. INTRODUCTION

Malnutrition is a serious public health problem faced by children in the world; currently, 195 million under-five children are affected by malnutrition globally; 55 million of them suffer from acute malnutrition and around 26 million under-five children are severely acute malnourished. Among the total under-five children suffering from malnutrition, 90% lives in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Every year, 3.5 million children die of malnutrition-related causes in the world. Hence, it is at third level in the world of the disease burden in this age group (Hobbs & Bush, 2014). Thus, in the developing countries more than 25% (143 million) under-five children are malnourished. Among these, nearly three quarters live in just 10 countries Even though childhood acute malnutrition declined relatively during the year 1990’s globally; its burden in Africa was increased in Sub-Saharan Africa region and more than one-quarter of children under

Read More