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 theschool children. Objective: To assess the nutritional status of school children in Ondo State Nigeria given that the National Home-GrownSchool 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. Theirmean 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 subjectsfrom the public schools. A significant association was found between Weight-for-Age Z-score, Height-for-Age Z-score, andBMI-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 fromprivate schools seem to present better nutritional status, although there is no baseline data to ratify this finding. A further studyon this subject using the current finding as a baseline data is recommended. Keywords: School children; Nutritional assessment; Stunting; Underweight; Wasting; School feeding programme.