Risk Factors In Childhood Malnutrition Genale Awraja South East Ethiopia

The nutritional status of a homogenous rural Ethiopian community wasrnst udi ed. A tota l of 1020 children. 498 (48.8% boys & 522 (51.2%) girls ill thernage group 6-59 months participated in the study. Factors that may possibly berninvolved in protein energy malnutrition were studied. As age of study childrenrnwas difficult to determine to the exact month the' re l atively age indepe ndentrnanthropometric index weight for he i ght was used. III all cases bivariaternanalyses was done. 302 (29. 6%) of the study children were found to be belowrn-2 Z-SCORE of the NCHS weight for h ei~.t refere nce. There was no difference inrnthe prevalence of malnutrition in the two sexes . However, boys were heRvier &rnt aller than girls. Socia- demographic variables like I,.come, family size,rnpolygamy, membership of the family to a farmers' producers co- operatives andrnmaternal literacy did not show any correlation with the nutritional status ofrnthe child. Having more t han one child in the age group 6- 59 months old in arnfamily predicted malnutrition. Duration of breast feeding was shown to berninversly related to nutritional status. Recent illnesses of diarrhoea, fever &rncough were strongly associated with poor nutritional status. Two hudredrnfifteen (21.1%) of the study children were cOlnpletely imml.nizcd

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