Nutritional status and its associated factors among under five years Muslim children of Kapilvastu district, Nepal

BACKGROUND: Malnutrition is a major public health problem throughout the world especially in Southeast Asia. This study aims to find out nutritional status and its associated factors among under five Muslim children of Kapilvastu district Nepal. METHODS: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 336 under five Muslim children in Kapilvastu district Nepal from December 2021 to May 2022. Multistage probability random sampling was used. Among ten local units, three were selected randomly. Then from selected three units, two wards from each unit which covers large proportion of Muslim were selected purposively. After selecting wards, listing of household having children 6 to 59 months was done with the help of Female Community Health Volunteers and 56 children were selected by simple random sampling from each wards. RESULTS: About half of Muslim children were underweight, 0.9% were overweight, 17.3% were wasted and 63.1% were stunted. Children with >4 members in family (AOR = 2.82, CI: 1.25-6.38), joint/extended family (AOR = 0.33, CI: 0.16-0.68), living with other than parents (AOR = 2.68, CI: 1.38-5.21), mother having primary (AOR = 2.59, CI: 1.09-6.10) and fathers having SLC and above education (AOR = 0.41, CI: 0.19-0.89), school going children (AOR = 0.27, CI: 0.15-0.48), no having agricultural land (AOR = 2.68, CI: 1.55-4.65), history of chronic diseases (AOR = 3.01, CI = 1.06-8.54) were significantly associated with underweight. Mothers having secondary (AOR = 0.30, CI: 0.10-0.88) and fathers having primary education (AOR = 3.50, CI: 1.26-9.74), school going children (AOR = 0.16, CI: 0.06-0.41), no having own land (AOR = 4.73, CI: 2.13-10.48), history of child chronic disease (AOR = 3.55, CI = 1.38-9.12) were significantly associated with wasting. Similarly, male children (AOR = 1.70, CI: 1.01-2.85), living in rural area (AOR = 0.17, CI: 0.09-0.31), joint/extended family (AOR = 0.28, CI: 0.13-0.64), living with other than parents (AOR = 3.71, CI: 1.84-7.49), fathers having secondary education (AOR = 0.50, CI: 0.27-0.94) and no having own land (AOR = 1.95, CI: 1.13-3.37) were significantly associated with stunting. CONCLUSIONS: Underweight, wasting and stunting in under-five Muslim children were above the cutoff point from the significant level of public health and higher than national data. Hence, this study suggests collaborative and immediate attention from responsible governmental and non-governmental organizations working in nutrition for providing informal learning opportunity, intervention regarding parental support to child, school enrolment at appropriate age, prevention and treatment of children's chronic diseases, intervention for income generating activities and addressing problems of household food insecurity among Muslim communities.