Abstract
BackgroundThere is a dearth of information on the health of pastoral Fulani children living in southwestern Nigeria. These are fully settled pastoralists whose economy are centred on cattle and farming. In other to monitor and plan appropriate nutritional intervention for their children, a cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of malnutrition of pastoral Fulani children.FindingsFulani's children aged 6 months to 15 years, living in 61 settlements in Kwara, Ogun and Oyo States in Southwestern Nigeria participated in the study. Heights and weights of 164 girls and 167 boys were measured. Their anthropometric indices, height-for-age (HA), weight-for-height (WH), and weight-for-age (WA) Z-scores determined. The prevalence of stunting (HAZ < -2), wasting (WHZ < -2) and underweight (WAZ < -2) was 38.7%, 13.6%, and 38.7%, respectively when compared to the reference NCHS/WHO standard used for defining stunting, wasting and underweight. Boys were more malnourished than the girls were, but this was not significant (stunting: χ2 = 0.36; df = 1; P = 0.54); (underweight: χ2 = 1.10; df = 1; P = 0.29); and (wasting: χ2 = 0.00; df = 1; P = 0.98) The mean of Z-scores of Height-for-age, Weight-for-age and Weight-for-height in children were -1.502, -1.634 and -0.931 respectively. The SD was 1.52, 1.09 and 1.20 respectively. Using WHO Malnutrition Classification systems, 38.7% of the children were found to be malnourished.ConclusionThese results indicate high prevalence of malnutrition among settled pastoral Fulani children, possibly due to changes in food habits and lifestyle occasion by the transition from nomadic to sedentary living. We suggest the inclusion of Fulani's settlements in nutritional intervention for these areas.
Highlights
MethodsThe three states are Ogun, Oyo and Kwara
There is a dearth of information on the health of pastoral Fulani children living in southwestern Nigeria
These results indicate high prevalence of malnutrition among settled pastoral Fulani children, possibly due to changes in food habits and lifestyle occasion by the transition from nomadic to sedentary living
Summary
The three states are Ogun, Oyo and Kwara. Oyo and Ogun states are located in humid zone, while Kwara state is in subhumid zone. The area has a wide range of vegetation zones. The vegetation ranges from fresh water swamp with mangrove forest in the southeast part of Ogun State through diverse forest communities, to the woody Guinea and Sudan savannah in the Northern parts of Oyo and Kwara States. Rainforest turned disturbed forest, covers a considerable portion of Oyo and Ogun States. A vast portion of the land area in Oyo and Kwara is made up of savannah woodland. The vegetation is dictated mainly by the rainfall pattern. Rainfall ranges from 900 mm in the northern parts of Kwara State, to 1600 mm along the coastal areas of Ogun State. The three states were selected because of the presence of a large number of pastoralists that have settled between 1–20 years either in grazing reserves or in locations selected by pastoralists themselves [1]
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