Nutritional Status and Associated Factors among School Children in Nsukka, Enugu State

Abstract

The study investigated nutritional status and associated factors among school children in Nsukka, Enugu State. Three research questions and twu null hypotheses guided the study. The Correlational survey research design was used for the study. The study population comprised of 8,102 school children. A sample size of 420 was drawn using multi-stage sampling procedure. The instruments for data collection were the Nutritional Status of Primary School Pupils Check List (NSPSPCL) and the Revised Family Affluence Scale (RFAS). Data collected were analyzed using SPSS version 22 to calculate frequency, percentage, phi correlation, and multinomial logistic regression. The results revealed that high proportion of school children (64.3%) were underweight, while low proportion of the school children had normal weight (33.5%), however few were overweight (1.7%), and obese (0.5%). There was a significant relationship between parental income (lower income, p = 0.000; middle income, p = 0.009) and child obesity. However, government should provide school meal services to school pupils in Enugu State Nigeria, where good nutritive school lunch will be provided. Moreover, health educators should organize workshops for parents and teachers on the need to make adequate diets based on locally available food. This hopefully will boost nutritional status of primary school children in Nsukka, Enugu State.