PREVALENCE OF MALNUTRITION AMONG CHILDREN UNDER-FIVE IN CALABAR SOUTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF CROSS RIVER STATE. A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON PUBLIC HEALTH
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background study
Nutrition is essential for life. Growth and development of an individual is determined by the quality of food consumed. The nutritional status of any person is dictated by the quality and quantity of nutrients absorbed and the body’s ability to use them for its metabolic needs. People who have a good nutritional status have no malnutrition. Malnutrition is the condition that occurs when the body is not getting the right amount of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients, required to maintain healthy functioning of tissues, organs and the body system in general, (John, 2013). The most vulnerable group prone to malnutrition is children due to their weak immune system. Children are prone to diseases, infection and malnutrition because their immune system are not fully developed are dependent on others for their basic need, and this stage of life is a critical stage that requires growth and development, hence the need for sufficient nutrients that will aid them in their growth and development, (UNICEF, 2013).
Generally, under-five children’s nutritional status is accepted as an indicator for the nutritional status of any community (John, 2013).The nutritional need of children is higher than that required for an adult this is because adult have strong immune system and they care and cater for their basic needs; what happens to this children is a reflection of the whole population and is used to measure the nutritional status of a population. Children are very important in the world and they constitute about 20% of a whole population, over 40% children in the world are stunted and more than 20% show chronic malnutrition which is quite challenging (INDEPTH, 2014).
According to 2015, UNICEF, WHO and world bank group released updated child malnutrition estimates for the 1990-2014 period, which represent the most recent global and regional figures after adding 62 new surveys from 57 countries to join the data set, global in 2014 there were estimated 667million children under 5 in the world; 159 million were stunted, 41 million were overweight and 50million were wasted.
Malnutrition contributes almost half of all children’s death, that is, more than 3 million per year (Robert & Black, 2013). It continues to be an issue in Nigeria owing to a myriad of factors. According to the 2012 Nigeria Standardized Monitoring and Assessment of Relief and Transition (SMART) survey, global acute malnutrition has a prevalence of between 6.4% and 13.1% and severe acute malnutrition between 0.7% and 2.2% (SMART, 2012). According to the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS, 2014), the percentage of stunting in Nigerian children under-five years declined from 41% in 2008 to 37% in 2013. However, the percentage of children who are wasted increased from 14% in 2008 to 18% in 2013. This indicates an ongoing deprivation among Nigerian children (NDHS, 2014).
