Nutritional status of primary school students and its association on academic performance in north-central Ethiopia: Cross-sectional study

Abstract Background: Under-nutrition is a fundamental factor which resulted in delayed cognitive development and underachievement of academic performance later in children’s life at school. The extent of under-nutrition in Ethiopia has been established well but there are insufficient evidences about its relationship with the educational achievement of school-age children. Objective : To assess the correlation of nutritional status with academic performance among public primary school children Method: - An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted over 399 primary school children in Debre-Tabor Town, Amhara Regional State North-Central Ethiopia, 2018 after selecting them with simple random sampling. The nutritional status was assessed using the anthropometric measurement of WHO 2007 reference as Height for Age Z-score (HAZ), Weight for Age Z-score (WAZ) and Body Mass Index for Age Z-score (BAZ). Academic performance was assessed by calculating two semesters of overall subjects’ average score. Descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation test, and linear regression were used for statistical analysis. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 24 and nutritional status was analyzed using WHO AnthroPlus version 1.0.4 (5-19 years). Result: - Almost half of study participants were male 209(52%), 291(73%) comes from married family, and 177(44%) were comes from family having more than five members. The mean age of the study participants were 11.85. The prevalence of stunting, wasting, underweight and overweight was 22%, 32.4%, 24.3%, and 1.3% respectively. The prevalence of any form of malnutrition was 56.14% and the mean academic performance for study participants was 71.65(±12.63 SD). There was a statistically significant positive relationship between academic achievement and HAZ. Age of child and absenteeism were associated negatively while attending preschool, the type of head of the house, and having breakfast habits associated positively with the educational achievement of the study participants. Conclusion: - The prevalence of under-nutrition among study participants was high. Considering the correlation of absenteeism, skipping breakfast, having preschool education and HAZ, nutritional interventions should be considered at prenatal, infancy and preschool period to sustain positive impact and reducing negative factors. Key Terms: Nutritional status, Academic performance, primary school, child1.