ABSTRACT
Nutritional status is an indicator of quality physical and mental development of school aged children. Physical growth does not only reflect on an individual’s status, but it also directly reflects the socio-economic status of family and social well-being of the community. This study assessed the growth and nutritional status of school aged children attending Ekosodin primary school in Benin City Edo state. The study adopted a descriptive cross sectional survey design and convenient sampling technique to select 200 respondents. A well-structured checklist was used as instruments of data collection based on the research objectives. The analysis of data was done using percentage and means ±SD; while test of hypotheses were tested using chi-square and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The level of significance was set at p<0.05. The IBM Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 24.0 was used in the analysis of data. The result shows the total mean weight was 31.32 0.731.The total mean height was 127.74 13.01 and total mean BMI and 15.47 2.89. The finding from this study shows that 1 (0.5%) of the school children had a wasted BAZ, 41(20.5%) had a normal BAZ, 41(20.5%) had an overweight BAZ, 17(8.5%) had an obese BAZ, 16(8%) had a severe obese BAZ. Three (1.9%) had a severely underweight WAZ, 5(3.2%) had an underweight WAZ, 123(78.3%) had a normal WAZ, 11(7%) had an overweight WAZ, 15(9.6%) had a severe overweight WAZ. Seven (3.5%) had a severe stunting HAZ, 23(11.5%) had a stunting HAZ, majority 164(82%) had a normal HAZ, 6(3%) had a tall for age HAZ. This study shows that there is no significant difference in the body mass index between male and female school aged children, in Ekosodin primary Benin City, Edo state. Also, there is no relationship between malnutrition and gender of school aged children in Ekosodin Primary School, Benin City, Edo State. it is therefore recommended that due emphasis should be given to strengthen the health extension program to improve and provide participatory nutrition education for better child feeding and caring practices in the rural community.
Keywords:growth, nutritional status, school aged children.
