Factors influencing nutrition status among children under five in Uganda

Abstract

Introduction: Nutritional status is the degree to which the individual’s physiological need for nutrients is being met by the foods that an individual is eating. It is the state of balanced diet in the individual between the nutrient intake and the nutrient expenditure. A well-nourished child is one whose weight and height measurements are compared very well with the standard normal distribution of heights and weights of a healthy child of the same age and sex Objective: To find out the factors influencing nutrition status among children under five in Uganda. Methods: The study adopted the research design used by the UDHS 2016 therefore the study also used secondary data from the UDHS 2016. In order to find out the relationship between the dependent and independent variables, the study adopted the chi square test. Results: Results from the study showed that majority of the respondents interviewed resided in rural (79.6%), attained primary education (61.7%) belonged to the poorest households (22.6%) and come from the western region (33%). Results also showed that majority of the children were age 1 (21.7%), male (50.4%) and were average size at birth (20.3%). At the second level analysis at the second level, chi square tests were used to establish the relationship between dependent and independent variables, a highly significant relationship was found to exist between nutrition status (height for age) and all independent variables. A highly significant relationship was found to exist between nutrition status (weight for age) and all independent variables with the exception of age of a child and sex of a child. a highly significant relationship was found to exist between nutrition status (weight for height) and all independent variables with exception of age and place of residence. Conclusion: The study showed that all social economic and demographic factors influenced nutrition status of the children under five therefore it recommended that: The Ministry of Health should strengthen nutrition education to ensure that the guardians/parents should cope with early nutritional status monitoring both at home and at health facility.