Prevalence of malnutrition among pre-school children in, South-east Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition can be defined as a state of nutrition where the weight for age, height for age and weight for height indices are below -2 Z-score of the NCHS reference. It has posed a great economic burden to the developing world. OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of malnutrition among pre-school children in Abakiliki in Ebonyi state of Nigeria. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional studies that assess the prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among children aged 1-5 years attending nursery and primary schools. Nutritional assessment was done using anthropometry and clinical examination. RESULTS: A total of 616 children aged one to 5 years were enrolled into this study. Three hundred and sixty-seven (59.6%) were males while 249 (40.4%) were females. Sixty of the 616 children (9.7%) had acute malnutrition based on WHZ-score. Moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) was present in 33 children (5.3%) while 27 (4.4%) had severe acute malnutrition. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence of global and severe acute malnutrition using z-score is 9.7% and 4.4% respectively while that of stunting is 9.9% with a male preponderance.