Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay Assignment Paper
Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
The sustenance of life depends greatly on water, therefore, the demand for potable water increases continually in line with world populationgrowth. Recently, many African cities have undergone unprecedented growth in population through migration from rural areas which has led to the growth of cities into sprawling “mega-cities” with large areas of unplanned sub-standard housing with few services. The unplanned expansion of such cities leads to a serious pollution threat to the groundwater and uncontrolled industrial and commercial activity add to the pollution threat (UNEP, 2002). This has been a major problem in developing countries; provision of drinking water has become expensive and difficult. The mainsource of potable water in many of these cities is groundwater, commonly from shallow hand-dug wells and deeper water supply boreholes. In Nigeria, like many other developing countries, open waste dumping system has been the major management option of solid waste disposal. In previous years, management system has been based on collection and dumping out of the city boundaries in conformity with the concept of “out of sight out of mind” (Arukweet al, 2012). But in recent times, the siting and development of residential quarters near waste sites are common due to shortage of building land to cope with the increasing rate of migration and consequent population explosion (Ikemet al., 2002).Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
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Adequate nutrition is vital for healthy growth and development during childhood [1]. Malnutrition refers a pathological state resulting from relative or absolute deficiency or excess of one or more essential nutrients [2]. Wasting, stunting, and underweight are among those anthropometric indicators commonly used to measure under nutrition in a population of under-five children [3]. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), wasting, stunting, and underweight are defined as Z-scores less than −2 standard deviations of weight for height, height for age, and weight for age, respectively [4]. Wasting and stunting reflect acute and chronic exposures for nutritional deficiency, respectively. In addition, underweight reflects both acute and chronic exposures for nutritional deficiency [5, 6].Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
Malnutrition among children is one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in the world, particularly in developing countries [7]. It is the most important risk factor for the burden of disease causing about 300,000 deaths per year directly or indirectly responsible for more than half of the all deaths in children [8]. Globally, approximately 60 million and 13 million of children are affected with moderate and severe acute malnutrition, respectively [9]. Worldwide reports show that 21.9%, 13.4%, and 7.3% of under five years of age are stunted, underweight, and wasted, respectively [10]. The WHO also estimated that about 5.4 million under-five children die each year with 2.7 million deaths occurred in Sub-Saharan African countries including Ethiopia [11].
Many studies reported the health and physical consequences of child malnutrition include delaying their physical growth and motor development, lower intellectual quotient (IQ), greater behavioral problems, deficient social skills, and susceptibility to contracting diseases. Child malnutrition may also lead to higher levels of chronic illnesses in adult life which may have intergenerational effects, as malnourished females are more likely to give birth to low-weight babies [12, 13].Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
Malnutrition is not a simple problem with a single and simple solution. Multiple and hierarchically interrelated determinants are involved in causing malnutrition [14]. The most immediate determinants are inadequate dietary intake and disease which are themselves caused by a set of underlying factors: household food insecurity, poor maternal/child caring practices, and lack of access to basic health services including lack of safe water supply and unhealthy living environment such as open defecation [15, 16]. In turn, these underlying causes themselves are influenced by economic, political, and sociocultural conditions; national and global contexts; capacity, resources, environmental conditions, and governance [17].
The Ethiopian government has been implementing a number of strategies such as the 2004 National Strategy for IYCF practices, the 2005/2006 National Nutrition Strategy, and the 2008 National Nutrition Program [18–20]. Furthermore, the government has planned to reach the zero-level under nutrition by 2030 [21]. As a result, the country has demonstrated a promising progress in reducing child malnutrition over the past decades. Though the problem of under nutrition has decreased in the country, it still continues to be one of the countries with the highest burden of malnutrition among under-five children in the world causing a significant obstacle to achieving better child health outcomes [22]. The prevalence of underweight and stunting among young children are the highest among Sub-Saharan African countries. Moreover, 51% of under-five children’s deaths are associated with malnutrition where its causes are multifaceted Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
According to the Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2016 report, about 9.7% of the children were wasted, 28.7% of the children were underweight, and 44.4% of the children were stunted with wide regional variations [17, 22]. In Afar Regional State, the prevalence of wasting, stunting, and underweight among under-five children were 19.5%, 50.2%, and 40.2%, respectively, which is the highest as compared to the national average and across other regions [22]. Other earlier studies from other specific regions and localities of the country also indicated the prevalence of wasting in the range 11%–24%, stunting 35–49%, and underweight Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Essay
Although the prevalence of child malnutrition is relatively well documented among agrarian communities and urban dwellers of Ethiopia, evidence on the nature, prevalence, and factors affecting for child malnutrition in pastoralist communities is limited. And, national estimates are also usually not a reflection of the local estimate of child malnutrition. Afar regional state, where pastoralist communities mainly resides, has been identified as one of the hotspot regions in the country with high food insecurity, higher child malnutrition rates, and recurrent onset of droughts [28]. This indicted that investigating the problem and identifying its causative factors within this context is an important step to design appropriate strategies to mitigate the problem. Therefore, with this background in mind, this study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors with malnutrition among under-five children in Dubti district, Afar Regional State, Northeast Ethiopia.
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