Strategies for Reducing Malnutrition on Children’s Zero to Five Years
Chapter One
OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The following are the objectives of this study:
- To examine the causes of malnutrition in children from zero to five years.
- To examine the prevalence of malnutrition in children from zero to five years.
- To identify the strategies for reducing malnutrition in children from zero to five years.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
INTRODUCTION
This chapter gives an insight into various studies conducted by outstanding researchers, as well as explained terminologies with regards to strategies for reducing malnutrition on children from zero to five years. The chapter also gives a resume of the history and present status of the problem delineated by a concise review of previous studies into closely related problems.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The theoretical approach has its origins in Becker’s Microeconomic models of household production (Becker, 1965, 1981) in which households allocate goods and time to the production of commodities that are either sold on the market, consumed at home, or for which there is no market. This work was expanded to the demand for health by Grossman (1972) and it also modified by several economists like Behrman and Deolalikar (1989), Strauss and Thomas (1995) and Currie (2000).
Becker (1965) has proven in illuminating the household determinants of nutrition. A ‘nutrition production function’ relates the child’s nutritional status (measured in terms of height for age or weight for age) to a set of health ‘inputs’. These include the child’s nutrient intake, whether the child is breastfed and the duration of breastfeeding, preventive and curative medical care, and the quantity and quality of time of the mother or others in care-related activities. The quality of child care time in turn is likely to be functions of the caregiver’s age, experience, education, own health status and environmental factors are also enter the production function. The potentially conflicting effects of maternal labour supply on child nutrition are readily seen within the production function framework. Greater income from mother’s employment translates into higher consumption of market-purchased inputs such as food and medical care that raise nutritional status, but reductions in the level or the quality of time in health-related activities reduce nutritional status.
A child’s nutritional status reflects the combined effects of many factors, including nutrient intake, health, birth order, and behavioral factors governed by parental preferences. In recognition of the interrelated variables are expressed child’s nutritional production function, they represented as;
Child’s Nutritional status = f (nutritional input, child’s health, child’s death, births, biological factors, childcare time, technology factors).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This chapter describes the research design, the target population and random sampling procedure, the instrument used, method of data collection and method of data analysis.
Research design
This is a descriptive study which seeks to ascertain the strategies for reducing malnutrition on children from zero to five years. A sample population will be used to collect primary data using the structured questionnaire and interview as research instrument.
Population of the study
The target population for this study consists of mothers of newly born babies from zero to five years.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with the presentation and analysis of the result obtained from questionnaires. The data gathered were presented according to the order in which they were arranged in the research questions, sample percentage and pie charts were used to analyze the demographic information of the respondents while the chi square test was adopted to test the research hypothesis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary of Findings
The objective of the study was to know to examine the causes of malnutrition in children from zero to five years, the prevalence of malnutrition in children from zero to five years, to identify the strategies for reducing malnutrition in children from zero to five years.
Findings from the study review that nutritional value of children in Nigeria is low and this especially effects children aged zero to five years. Some of the respondents stated that there are no adequate strategies for reducing malnutrition in Nigeria.
CONCLUSION
Early life growth malnutrition in children from zero to five years can alter metabolism and physiological patterns and have lifelong effects on the risk of cardiovascular disease. Children who are undernourished are more likely to be short in adulthood, have lower educational achievement and economic status.
Recommendation
The following recommendation is made from this study;
- Efforts must be made by both parents and the government to provide proper nutrition for children from zero to five years
- The early life growth of any child is between zero to five years, this is when the child’s system is developing and for this reason, strategies such as prompt medical services, low price of babies food should be implemented to reduce the level of malnutrition among children.
REFERENCES
- Alderman, H. and Hoddinott, J. and Kinsey, B. 2006. ―Long Term Consequences of Early Childhood Malnutrition,‖ Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 58, No.3, pp.450-474.
- Angrist, J. and W. Evans.1998. ―Children and Their Parents‘ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous Variation in Family Size,‖ The American Economic Review, 88(3), pp.450- 477.
- Bacolod, Marigee P. and Priya Ranjan. 2008. ―Why Children Work, Attend School, or Stay Idle: The Roles of Ability and Household Wealth,‖ Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 56, pp.791-828.
- Barro, Robert J. and Gary S. Becker. 1989. ―Fertility Choice in a Model of Economic Growth‖, Econometrica, Vol. 57, No.2, pp.481-501.
- Baser, O., Bradley, C.J., Gardiner, J.C., Given, C., 2004. Testing and correcting for non-random selection bias due to censoring: an application to medical costs. Health Services and Outcomes Research Methodology 4, 93–107.
- Binder, M. 1999. ―Schooling Indicators during Mexico‘s ‗Lost Decade.‘‖ Economics of Education Review, 18(2):183–99.
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