KNOWLEDGE OF MALNUTRITION AND ITS' PREVENTIVE PRACTICES AMONG PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS IN IDO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF OYO STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

In developing countries such as Nigeria where malnutrition in infant and early childhood is high, its prevention among school children cannot be overemphasized. However, knowledge of malnutrition by teachers who are the vanguard of the implementation of the school based malnutrition prevention is yet to be well studied. The study set out to assess malnutrition knowledge and its prevention practices among primary school teachers in Ido Local Government Area of Ibadan, Oyo State. The descriptive cross sectional design was used. Four hundred and twenty six primary school teachers selected by multistage random sampling method from Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria were interviewed using a pre-tested self administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics such as means, range, proportion were used to summarize data. Chisquare and t-test were used to test for association between categorical and continuous variables respectively. Level of significance was set at 5%. Mean age of respondents was 36.8 +- 9.34 years. Male to female ratio was 1:1.9. The overall mean knowledge score on the causes, effect, features and prevention of malnutrition was 58.49 out of 78. Two hundred and twenty one (57.1%) of the 387 teachers were graded "Good", 149 (38.5%) "Fair" and 17 (4.4%) "Poor" in overall knowledge score. Two hundred and ninety eight teachers (74.8%) accepted their role as key element in the development of healthy eating habit among pupils. There was no significant association between the overall knowledge score; and sex, years of experience as a teacher, educational qualification and the Body Mass Index except with the type of school (i.e private or public) which shows a significant difference whereby those in private schools demonstrated a better knowledge than their colleagues in public schools. Books (81.8%), Television (72%) and Ratio (63.9%) were the major sources of information on nutrition issues while the least utilised resource was the internet (26.5%). Insufficient instructional time and insufficient fund were the major factors respondents gave as barriers to nutrition and physical education within their school system. Regarding meal policies, 91% of participants in public schools compared to 79.3% of private said policy on assessing the appearance of food provided by food vendors is available in their school (Chi Square-10.19, p<0.05). Similarly, 91% of respondents in public schools as compared to 80.6% in private indicated that their school ensure that varieties of food is provided by food vendor (Chi Square=10.19, p<0.05). Percentage of teachers with adequate knowledge on malnutrition issues is low with no significant difference with their socio-demmographic characteristics. Education and re-orientation of teachers through seminars, workshop and in-service training education programme is recommended.