Nutritional status of school children in South-west Nigeria: Inferences from a national homegrown school feeding programme

Abstract

Background: The School Feeding Programme if properly executed has the capacity to improve the nutritional status of the school children. Objective: To assess the nutritional status of school children in Ondo State Nigeria given that the National Home-Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) has been operational in the state for over five years. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Results: A total of 234 subjects from public schools and 227 subjects from private schools were enrolled in the study. Their mean age was 8.23 ± 1.92 years. Wasting, overweight, obesity, underweight, and stunting were noted in 19.4%, 11.4%, 0.4%, 5.0%, and 20.7% of the children, respectively. The prevalence of stunting (30.3%) and wasting (23.9%) was more among subjects from the public schools. A significant association was found between Weight-for-Age Z-score, Height-for-Age Z-score, and BMI-for-Age Z-score and the children’s school type (p < 0.005). Conclusion: Majority of the children showed normal growth, the rest were in both extremes of malnutrition, the subjects from private schools seem to present better nutritional status, although there is no baseline data to ratify this finding. A further study on this subject using the current finding as a baseline data is recommended. Keywords: School children; Nutritional assessment; Stunting; Underweight; Wasting; School feeding programme.