Study of Educational Achievement, Behaviour and Socio-economic Characteristics associated with Chronic undernutrition among grade 1 students.

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to describe the nutritional status of the children in grade I of the schoolsin the university community health project area and to compare the behaviour,educational achievement and intelligence in a group of children identified as having chronic malnutrition with a normal group matched for sex, age and class.This study shows that the development quotient and behaviour had the highest influnce on the variability observed in the educational performance and these effects were independant of the influence of the socio-economic factors.These results have important national implications since a large proportion of child at school entry are stunted.The prevalence of PEM among grade I school children in the university health project area of Kotte was found to be high,being 24.5 per cent. Usefulness of this measure (the criterion of weight for age) needs to be reviewed in the light of the finding that 28 per cent of the population who were identified by the method as undernourished are not wasted according to waterlow classification.Behavioural problems were found to be associated with stuning and also found to influence educational outcome itself or in conjunction with stunting.A relationship has been established between low height for age and low overall educational performance.