Nutritional status and mental development in rural Haiti

Abstract

Pre‐school children in rural Haiti were examined and weighed by a team from the Bureau of Nutrition. A total of 221 children were weighed and classified according to their weight‐for‐age as normal, or nutritionally deficient in the First, Second, or Third Degree, using the Gomez scale. A decade later, 164 of the same children who were weighed and classified in the original survey were tested for mental maturity with the Goodenough Draw‐A‐Person test. Scores were cross‐tabulated with nutritional status of the previous decade. Findings indicated a statistically significant relationship between nutritional level and mental maturity level. Children with the most severe malnutrition in the original survey were found in significant numbers in the lowest quartile of mental maturity test scores. Similarly, a significant number of children whose weight‐for‐age was normal in the pre‐school survey placed in the highest quartile of the mental maturity test administered a decade later. Findings indicate that malnutrit...