Relationship Between Individual Dietary Diversity Grade and Malnutrition among School Aged Children Individual dietary diversity grades and childhood malnutrition.

Abstract

Background: Malnutrition is one of the major predisposing factors to infectious diseases globally especially among school aged children. Low grades of individual dietary diversity is a suspected risk factor for childhood malnutrition. Objective: To determine the relationship between individual dietary diversity grade and childhood malnutrition among 6-12-year old school pupils. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional descriptive study that enrolled 203 primary school pupils. Socio-demographic data was collected using a pretested interviewer administered questionnaire. The number of food groups present in their immediate past 24-hour dietary recall was used to grade the dietary diversity of each study subject. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 25.0. The association between dietary diversity grades and occurrence of malnutrition was determined. Level of significance for tests of association was set at 5%. Results: The result showed that out of 203 subjects that were enrolled for data analysis, 105(51.7%) were males, and 117(57.6%) were 6-8 year old. Forty one (20.2%), 69(34.0%), 93(45.8%) were from upper, medium and low socio-economic class (SEC) classes respectively. Out of 203 subjects, 54(26.6%) had high Individual Dietary Diversity Grade IDDG (IDDS >5), 56(27.6%) had medium IDDG (IDDS 3-4) and 93(45.8%) had low IDDG (IDDS 1-3). Low SEC and lowest dietary diversity grade were significantly associated with occurrence of childhood malnutrition. (P< 0.05). Conclusion: Low IDDG and SEC were associated with malnutrition. Nutritional counseling on the need to increase dietary diversity grade of school children can help mitigate the impact of malnutrition.