Nutritional status of school children in Addis Ababa who are and are not involved in a school feeding program

Abstract

Introduction: One of the major issues facing developing countries today is under nutrition among children with unmet nutritional and healthcare need. Primary school age children are at vulnerable age where nutrition is especially important.
Objective: To determine the prevalence of acute malnutrition and chronic malnutrition among selected school children of Addis Ababa city.
Methods and Materials: School based descriptive cross sectional comparative study design was conducted from September 2014 to March 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, among 7–14 years old, grades 1–8 primary school children. Multistage proportional stratified sampling technique was used after randomly identifying five sub-cities, within which ten primary schools providing school feeding were randomly selected. A total of 280 students were recruited for the study. Nutritional status of the two groups was compared, and the food diversity and nutrient composition of the food given to the children was determined.
Results: Prevalence of wasting among the overall school children in school feeding program was found to be 7.1% and was less than those involved in the feeding program (10%).,Underweight was higher among those not involved in the program (10.5%) compared with those in the feeding program (5.6%). The prevalence of stunting involved in the school feeding was much higher (23.6%) as compared with group not involved in the feeding program (16.5%). The dietary diversity score was significantly influenced by educational status of the parents or caregivers (p-value, 0.0001). Children from the feeding group had better food diversity profile than those not involved in the program. Most of the school meal composition was not sufficient to meet the children's nutrient and energy needs.
Conclusion: The prevalence of acute malnutrition was found to be low whereas chronic malnutrition was moderate among the school children irrespective of their involvement in feeding programs. There were no statistically significant differences between the two studied groups regarding nutritional status. The school meals’ protein content was adequate; however, these meals do not satisfy the daily requirement for most other nutrients and energy.