Introduction:
Understanding the socioeconomic characteristics of families with
undernourished children is very critical to providing solution to the menace especially
in rural communities where there is complexity in the relationship between
economic activities, education and parental care and the undernutrition. Objectives:
The study is aimed at understanding the nutritional status of children under
the age of 5 years in relation to the socio economic status of the family so as
to determine causes of vulnerability. Methods: Hospital based cross sectional
study was carried among 505 children under the age of 5 years, taking
measurement of their Mid Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) using standard
techniques and also taking records of their families’ socioeconomic data using
structured questionnaire. Results: Record of nutritional status of the children
sampled shows that undernourished children were 345 (68.3%) and the nourished
were 160 (31.7%). The number of times each child felt sick within the last one
year shows that out of the total 505 children, 140 (27.72%) fell sick once, 155
(30.69%) fall sick twice in the previous year, 65 (12.87%) felt sick three
times, 55 (10.89%) felt sick four times due to either malaria, undernutrition or
other factors. Children born to farmers, constituting 51.5% of the sampled children
have as high as 69.2% prevalence of undernutrition, compared to those born to
beggars (0%). The highest prevalence is recorded in children born to petty
traders (80%), followed by government workers and commercial motorcyclist with 75% each. Prevalence of 100% was recorded in
the sampled children whose father attains tertiary level of education, followed
by those who attain only secondary level of education (68%). Conclusion: There
is high prevalence of undernutrition among children in rural communities which is often underestimated for the fact that rural
dwellers of Kano are mostly farmers and that
they are adequate to provide for their children.
Frequency of illnesses among the children of rural dwellers is associated with
the nutritional status of the children. Malnutrition is not always dependent on
the occupation and educational status of the parents or whether child parents
are alive or not. Children of farmers and learned persons are also very susceptible to malnutrition in the rural
communities of Kano. Nutritional education and programs should as well
target all families with varied socioeconomic status, including farmers, petty
traders and those with high educational status without making assumptions that
they are less susceptible to malnutrition.
Cite this paper
Muhammad, A. I. , Yunusa, I. , Bolori, M. T. , Ezeanyika, L. U. S. , Walla, H. A. and Gidado, Z. M. (2017). Malnutrition among Children under 5 Does Not Correlate with Higher Socio Economic Status of Parents in Rural Communities. Open Access Library Journal, 4, e3906. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/oalib.1103906.
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