Prevalence of Malnutrition Among Children Under Five Years in Buwesa Parish, Butaleja District, Uganda.

Abstract

Malnutrition is a major public health problem among children throughout the world particularly in developing countries which Uganda is not exceptional. However while most data was providing prevalence of malnutrition across all regions of Uganda the country is still lacking adequate information particularly anthropometric data involving height for age and weight for height under five. The main objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among children under five in Buwesa parish Butaleja district.

Across sectional descriptive study design was carried out involving 224 children aged five and below who were randomly sampled from Luwanda village and Muhuyu health facility their weights height and mid upper arm circumference were measured, and three anthropologic indices were used to determine the type and level of malnutrition namely stunting wasting, and underweight.

The BMI criterion indicated that 87% of the children were of normal weight with using standardized BMI figures. However, some children who were reported to be having a normal weight using the BMI criterion turned out to be moderately malnourished or severally malnourished when tested using MUAC for example out of the 87% only 53.27%percent of the children were feeding to standards.

Actually from the results 4%of the children were moderately underweight while 27(9%) were severely stunted, 83(21.7%) were moderately stunted and only 124(66.9%) were normal. A further investigation about the social economic factors and demographic factors indicated that about a half of the children’s parents were peasant farmers, 44.6%, While 28.5% households heads were unemployed This implies that they could not afford to avail the children with the basic nourishment they deserve for proper growth. Therefore, interventions to combat this problem should be initiated and should target both men and women in the community