The Effect of Hunger on Learning Capability of Primary School Pupils in Edo State

The Effect of Hunger on Learning Capability of Primary School Pupils in Edo State

CHAPTER ONE

General objective

To assess and compare the hunger and learning capability of primary school children in Oredo Local Government Area (LGA) of Edo State and to determine the relationship between hunger and academic performance.

Specific objectives

To assess the hunger and learning capability of urban and rural primary school children in Oredo LGA.
To compare the hunger and learning capability of urban and rural primary school children in Oredo LGA.
To assess the relationship between hunger and learning capability of the pupils.
To identify determinants of nutritional status among the pupils at the study sites.

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

Historical background

Content Summary

Nutritional and educational development in Europe and America

A long history of European and American experience showed that the difference in nutritional and educational achievements between the developed and developing countries did not just happen over-night nor even during the past decade. The current achievement is as a result of a long history of more than a hundred years of development, of testing, evaluating and of constant research to provide the best in nutrition, nutrition education and food service for these nations’ millions of children in school.

One of the earliest efforts at improving the nutritional status of young children was by Benjamin Thompson, an American physicist and statesman who in 1790 started a combined programme of teaching and feeding hungry, vagrant children in Munich, Germany.³² The success of this programme resulted in many countries seeking his assistance in developing public mass feeding. By 1867, the French Government officially commenced the establishment of school lunch programmes for needy children with the objective of giving special attention to the nutrition of the children. Similarly by royal decree in 1900, Holland authorized municipalities to supply food and clothing to public and private school children who were unable to go regularly to school because of the lack of food and clothes. Thus Holland became the first country to adopt national legislation specifically to provide school lunches. Switzerland on the other hand provided lunches to some primary school children to encourage attendance by children who lived long distances from school. The resultant observations were better attendance, improved attention and better scholastic work by the children.

In England, the passage of the Provisions of Meals Act in 1905 was the result of efforts by several organizations to provide food for needy primary school children who were unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them as well as a reflection of national concern over the physical condition of the populace.

At the same time, by the early 1900’s, school feeding had spread throughout most of the European countries with Norway introducing the “Oslo Breakfast” as a new venture in school feeding in Norway.

In the United States (US), effort to feed hungry, needy children in school was strongly influenced by Robert Hunter’s 1904 book, “Poverty: Social Conscience in the Progressive Era”. Deeply concerned with hunger particularly among children in poor families, Hunter stated “It is utter folly, from the point of view of learning, to have a compulsory school law which compels children in that weak, physical and mental state which results from poverty, to drag themselves to school and to sit at their desks, day in and day out, for several years, learning little or nothing. If it is a matter of principle in democratic America that every child shall be given a certain amount of instruction, let us render it possible for them to receive it, as monarchical countries have done, by making full and adequate provision for the physical needs of the children who come from the homes of poverty.”³² Many state and local school districts thereafter intensified provision of food for their students to promote learning.³³ The United States federal government subsequently became involved in feeding children in schools through the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1935 under which the government distributed surplus meat, dairy products and wheat to needy families and schools.³⁴ It was in 1946 however that with the promulgation of the National Lunch Program, the government institutionalized feeding supplementation within schools throughout the United States.³³ The Child Nutrition Act of 1966 passed later was to assume control over Breakfast and Special Milk Programs, Summer and Childcare Programs and Maternal and Infant Feeding Programs.³³ The primary stated objective was to promote adequate nutrition among school-aged children in recognition of the demonstrated relationship between food and good nutrition and the capacity of children to develop and learn based on the years of cumulative successful experience under the National School Lunch Program while the secondary purpose was to encourage domestic consumption of American agricultural products. The Act did this by allocating surplus food and grants-in-aid to states so that local school districts could provide lunches for children who might otherwise go hungry.

CHAPTER THREE

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study site

The study sites were selected public primary schools from the three areas (Oba, Oredo and Owode). Five hundred and fifty-four (554) pupils were selected from 8 urban schools while 606 pupils were selected from 54 rural schools.

Target population

The target population consisted of children public primary schools in Oredo Local Government Area.

Study population

The study population was made up of pupils in primary 4 in the selected study sites. This class has been chosen because most of the pupils were old enough to answer the questions correctly. The class was also chosen because the rate of school drop-out especially in the rural areas tended to increase after this class, the highest enrolment figures in most schools being recorded in this class.

Exclusion criteria

Children who were not in primary 4.
Children whose parents did not give their consent for participation in the study.

CHAPTER FOUR

DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS

Socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and parents by location A total of 1,160 children made up of 633 (54.6%) males and 527 (45.4%) females were studied. There were 606 respondents, 346 (57.1%) males and 260 (42.9%) females from rural schools and 554 respondents, 287 (51.8%) males and 267 (48.2%) females from urban schools. The result as presented in Table 1 shows respondents’ socio-demographic characteristics by school location.

CHAPTER FIVE

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

DISCUSSION

Nutritional status

The success of child survival programmes and the expansion of basic education coverage have resulted in a greater number of children reaching school age with a higher proportion actually attending primary school.²⁴Increasing evidence has also confirmed high level of nutritional deprivation combined with a heavy burden of disease in this age group with their attendant negative consequences for a child’s long term overall development.²⁴ In this study, the overall prevalence of stunting and underweight among school children was high. This is in keeping with results from previous studies in Nigeria¹⁷ and other developing countries.^25,112 A contributory factor could be the low educational status of most parents of respondents from both urban and rural locations such that a high proportion of them were unskilled workers with low income resulting in low purchasing power and poor availability of food.Overall wasting was low and much lower than results from some other studies. ^17,20,56 Wasting indicates in most cases a recent and severe process of weight loss often associated with acute starvation and/or severe disease⁵⁰and since this study was carried out during the rainy season, there might be the possibility of availability of food for most families at that time.

The prevalence of stunting, wasting and underweight among children from rural schools were significantly higher compared with those from urban schools. The better nutritional status of children in urban communities in this study agrees with findings in other studies

in Nigeria^{17, 31, 56} and other developing countries.^18-19,,66 This difference might be due to differences in socio-economic status of the parents ¹¹³coupled with a higher burden of

infections especially helminthic infections^66,72,112 in the rural communities. Moreover, the low educational status of most parents or caregivers could also be associated with poor knowledge in nutrition in addition to certain cultural or traditional practices which might further undermine the children’s nutritional intake through food avoidance and taboos. This is consistent with previous findings.^31,66 Stunting was the commonest type of malnutrition in this study and agrees with findings in other studies^17-19,25,31As an indication of chronic malnutrition, stunting begins in childhood⁵⁰and might continue as the child grew older representing the accumulated consequences of retarded growth.

Socio-demographic characteristics

Although the age range of children studied in both urban and rural schools was the same, those from rural schools were overall older. This in keeping with findings in other studies that children from rural communities were more likely to enrol late into schools possibly because of retarded growth and lower socio-economic status of parents.^{14, 85} There were more males than females in both school groups with much higher males than females in the rural schools. This could be due to more involvement of females in domestic work especially trading in the rural areas. However a study in Nigeria found more females than males in their study.¹⁷Majority of the respondents from both school groups lived with their parents. However,more children from rural schools than urban schools lived with their grandparents possibly because the grandparents tend to have more time than their parents for their care and the grandparents also demand for their company in their old age. A higher proportion of children from rural schools were from polygamous and large families. This also agrees with the finding of mothers of children from rural schools on average having more children than those of urban children. This is in keeping with the findings in another study in Nigeria³¹ and the 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS)¹⁰⁴ which showed that on the average, rural women had one child more than urban women (6.1 versus 4.9 respectively). ¹¹⁴ By extension, the NDHS findings suggest that cosmopolitan people tend to control their family size more than less cosmopolitan people.

The finding of a significantly higher proportion of parents of children in urban schools with higher levels of education and better employment as civil servants compared with those from the rural schools agrees with the findings in other studies that parents with higher educational status and better income generally stay in urban areas where better job opportunities exist.^31,70 Although majority of the mothers of the children in the study were married, there were more widows and those separated and divorced among the rural communities. This might be due to differences in the socio-economic status of the two groups.

Correlates of nutritional status

Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics that were associated with nutritional status varied according to location. While some socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were associated with nutritional status in the two locations, other characteristics were associated in only one location supporting the fact that location of a child’s residence is a contributory factor to the nutritional status.^17,66,72

Socio-demographic correlates of nutritional status

Rural location was significantly associated with a number of variables in the study.

At both locations, younger children were significantly more likely to be wasted compared with older counterparts. Wasting, an assessment of acute or recent malnutrition could be precipitated by infection or low food supply. A higher prevalence in younger children could be due to maldistribution of scarce food resources in the homes especially in large families.

At both locations, the prevalence of stunting and underweight increased with age. This corroborated with findings in other studies in Nigeria¹⁷ and other developing countries.^20,66,68 With higher prevalence of wasting in the younger children and scarce food resources, it seems reasonable to suggest that the higher prevalence of chronic malnutrition in older children might be an indication of continuation of these levels of malnutrition in older children since the malnutrition in the under-fives was not likely to magically disappear soon after the children crossed the critical threshold of 5 years.

In the rural location, the prevalence of stunting was higher in males than in females. However, overall, the male gender was associated with stunting. Underweight on the other hand was significantly higher in male children on both locations at the bivariate analysis and overall, male children were significantly more likely to be underweight. This is in keeping with results from other studies.^{17,20,25,31,54} Male children are generally known to be more active andmore sensitive to environmental insults such as malnutrition, infections and diseases. ⁶⁹ The difference in the growth status among boys and girls might therefore be attributed to physical activity, food intake and infections. As the majority of the children were from low income households, their food intake might be inadequate in terms of quality and quantity. If boys were physically more active than girls, in the presence of inadequate food intake, this might compromise their nutritional status or exacerbate their already poor growth status. A higher susceptibility to infection would place boys at a greater risk of poor nutritional status. Also culturally the greater involvement of girls than boys in food preparation in the household might make them more accessible to food than boys though it was uncertain whether this would translate into such a marked difference in nutritional status. Boys however are usually eventually bigger than girls because of their delayed growth spurt.

Conclusion

The result demonstrated a high level of malnutrition (wasting, stunting and underweight) among urban and rural primary school children in Oredo local government. Stunting and underweight were more prevalent than wasting.
The prevalence of wasting, stunting and underweight among rural primary school children were significantly higher compared with those from urban schools.
Urban primary school children had significantly higher academic performance compared with those from rural schools.

Recommendations

In other to improve the hunger and learning capability of primary school children, the following recommendations are made:

Implementation of active growth monitoring of the school children. This is an easy and inexpensive tool for health professionals to obtain information on the health and nutrition of the school-age population.
Intervention programs should focus on educating families regarding child nutrition especially for males along with additional efforts aimed at reducing poverty.

Further studies are needed to examine the effects of other important nonnutritional correlates of academic performance among school children.

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