ABSTRACT

Childhood malnutrition continues to be a public health problem of school-aged children in resource-limited countries.  Nutritional status which is an important index for measuring the quality of life especially in children is affected by food intake and incidence of childhood infections. The study so far assessed the dietary habits and anthropometric status of school-aged children in Enugu East L.G.A. The study employed the use of a cross-sectional study design. The population was made up of male and female primary school children in private and public schools in Enugu East L.G.A of Enugu State. The study used a multi-stage sampling technique to select 382 children from both public and private schools. Data for the study were gathered using a structured questionnaire, while the anthropometric data were obtained by taking various measurements of the children such as (weight and height), after which the data were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The result on personal data of the children showed that more than half (54%) of the children were girls, with 37% been the predominant age group between the ages of 6-8 years. The result on socio-economic characteristics of the parents showed that 49.7% of the parents had a secondary education while 31.4% had primary education. The result further showed that 31.7% were civil servants and 27.0% were artisans which was a reflection of their educational qualifications. The anthropometric status of the children showed that children in public schools were malnourished with 25.1% been severely underweight and 7.6% were underweight, 17.8% were stunted, and 7.3% were severely wasted while 17.8% were wasted. The result for the private school children showed that 7.0% were overweight while 8.0% were underweight. More so, 17.8% were stunted, 7.1% were severely wasted while 13.1% were wasted. Finally, on the result on the association between dietary habit and socioeconomic status, the study found that dietary habit had significant (P<0.05) relationship with the socio-economic status of the children. More so, the association between dietary habit and anthropometric status showed that dietary habit had significant (P<0.05) and positive association with anthropometric indices such as weight for age and height for age with weight for height. This result on feeding pattern and 24hour dietary recall suggest that the children consumed more of carbohydrate-rich foods such as starchy staples which may be as a result of the high cost of food as starchy staples are easily available in the study area. The significant association which exists between dietary habit and anthropometric status further buttresses the findings in previous studies, thus a good dietary habit will result in better anthropometric indices for school-aged children.