ABSTRACT

Better nutrition has been shown to have an impact on both cognitive and spatial memory/ academic performance. Parents of lower socioeconomic status tend to have children who are less successful in school and have a lower education attainment and poorer health outcomes than those with higher socio-economic status. Thus, this study was carried out to assess the effect of Socio-Economic Characteristics of parents on Anthropometric status of Infants (0-59 months) in Essien Udim Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom state. A cross-sectional study design was used. Data were collected by using pretested questionnaires. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 250 mothers and their children. The IBM SPSS version 21.0 computer programme and WHO anthro plus were used to analyze the data. Significant relationship was judged at p ≤ 0.05. Data obtained were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the relationship between parental socio-economic status of the children and anthropometric indices of the children The result showed that 42.4% and 42.8% of the mothers had secondary and tertiary education while 34.0% and 54.4% of fathers had secondary and tertiary education. However, 66.8% of the respondents breastfed their children after delivery, introduced breastfeeding within 60 minutes after birth, some (28.4%) of the mothers did gave their children breast milk after 3 days and little below 48.0% introduced water and other foods after the first six months as 24% breastfed for 6 months. Many (72.0%) of the respondents gave their children Infant formula, 24% introduced it at age of 1-2 months and 3-5 months respectively while 28% did not use it at all. During complementary feeding (23.2%) used only soya bean to enrich their baby food. In terms of skipping of meals, 14% of the children skipped meals, of which breakfast (9.6%) was mostly skipped. The weight-for-height status revealed that 4.2% of the children were severely wasted while the weight-for-age status revealed that 8.5 % were severely underweight. The height-for-age status showed that 18.7% of the children were severely underweight as their BMI for age showed that 10.2% were obese. However, there was a significant relationship (p≤ 0.05) between mother’ monthly income, father’s occupation and anthropometric status of the children. No significant relationship were found between mother’s educational status, father’s educational qualification, mother’s occupation and the anthropometric status of the children. Conclusively, educating the mothers on ways to improve breastfeeding practices will help to reduce the number of children at risk of under nutrition as evidenced by their low weight-for-age, height-for-age and weight-for-height z-scores.