**4.7 Availability of electricity and radio in household**

Despite access to electricity and radio, which facilitates the acquisition of nutritional information allowing more successful allocation of resources to produce child health (Kandala, 2001), only the availability of electricity was significant and had a positive effect on reducing stunting, and underweight with separate analysis, and it seems to be significant on the LVM "nutritional status". This may be because mothers allocate their leisure time to radio or television, but it doesn't help improve the level of nutrition of their children. At the same time, it reduces the length of time spent engaging in their children's affairs.(Kandala 2001)

#### **4.8 Antenatal visits**

The variables that deal with access to health care, such as children of mothers who obtained clinical visits during pregnancy and had vaccines and treatment, have a positive and significant effect on malnutrition status. Therefore, health service investments are more effective in reducing stunting, wasting and underweight among indigenous communities. Our results indicate that children of mothers who had clinical visits and got medical care during pregnancy are less likely to be stunted and to be underweight than their counterparts in Nigeria. The results with two indicators also indicate that the *anvis* has a positive effect.

#### **4.9 Child's age**

In the analysis, it was discovered that the situation among children who are stunted is quite similar; however, the deterioration in nutritional status is set between 5-20 months of age.

Associations Between Nutritional Indicators Using Geoadditive

poverty and malnutrition as persistent problems in Nigeria.

less likely to affect their children's nutritional status positively.

in the southern part of the country are associated with undernutrition.

**4.12 Malnutrition in region** 

**4.13 Summary** 

undernutrition of children.

**4.14 Policy implications** 

**5. Appendix** 

malnutrition and child mortality.

and raising the educational level of parents.

Latent Variable Models with Application to Child Malnutrition in Nigeria 559

As reported in the 2003 NDHS, the trend in the nutritional status of Nigerian children has worsened with regard to stunting and wasting (from 36% in 1990 to 46% in 1999 for stunting and 11% in 1990 to 12% in 1999 for wasting). The results, based on our analysis, indicate that mostly districts in the northeast and southeast and northwest are more likely to be associated with *nutritional problems*, providing a more complete picture of the situation. The result also revealed striking regional variations, with the northeast, south and southeast in much worse situations in terms of stunting and underweight than the northwest and southwest For more information about the different states in Nigeria, see figure 5 . On the other hand, the children who live in the northwest part of the country are more likely to be wasted than their counterparts in other parts of the country. These regional and zonal disparities may reflect the contribution of other factors, such as socio-cultural conditions and morbidity of children, in determining the nutritional status of children under the age of five. The high prevalence of stunting observed in the 2003 NDHS survey is in the context of large-scale deepening poverty and household food insecurity. Severe rural poverty appears to be found in the southwest of Nigeria, in the north-center, and in the extreme northeast. These results are consistent with some previous studies which discuss the relation between

The results showed that the place of residence, mother's working, type of toilet and availability of electricity and radio in households have negligible effects on the

We find that the analysis identify the association of child's age, mother's age at birth and mother's BMI as effecting undernutrition. It was found that children are at a high risk during the first 15-20 months of life and that the risk rises again between ages 25-50 months. The effect of BMI on the child's nutritional status is approximately linear with positive slope, which means that there is an association between the thinness condition of mothers and nutritional status. According to the mother's age at birth, it shows that younger mothers are

It is found that children living in some provinces in the southeast regions and some regions

Affected areas should improve socioeconomic conditions. Because, if living standards are improved, there will be better health care and a reduction in infant and child diseases, child

The policymakers need to give more attention to some areas which have high rates of poverty, such as the southern part of Nigeria. These areas are more likely to have a higher proportion of undernutrition compared to other areas, due to poor health facilities and complications during childbirth or even carelessness and misdiagnosis during hospital care. Therefore, the most important issues to address in these areas are health care, proper food,

As presented in this paper, LVMs are based on the results of the separate models which were presented in Khatab, 2007. At that stage, we have used separate geoadditive probit

Similarly, deterioration in child's *weight-for-height* sets during the first 4-5 months of age, as reported in much of the literature, is due to supplementation. However, it reaches its minimum level between ages 13 and 15 months, then rises again and reaches its minimum level between 16 and18 months of age; which is earlier than the case of stunting. A sudden pick-up effect is noticeable from age 18 months until about 45 months, where it attains its maximum level.

An improvement commenced after age 20 or 25 months and rose gradually until age 50 months. Previous studies assumed that it is an average effect of low *height-for-age* and *weight-for-height* during this period of life (Adebayo, 2003)

The level of wasting suggests that insufficient food intake may be an important factor in the rise of malnutrition in both countries. In addition, the implication of this finding is that wasting is not clearly noticeable in the first four months of life. As soon as a child is fed with other supplementation such as liquids or other forms of diet, which due to the unhygienic source of preparation of such supplementation, may facilitate infections and diseases such as diarrhoea, then acute malnutrition may set in.

### **4.10 Mother's BMI**

A mother's nutritional status affects her ability to successfully carry, deliver, and care for her children and is of great concern in its own right. The BMI pattern shows linear trends with positive slopes. Malnutrition in women is assessed using BMI. When the BMI of nonpregnant women falls below the suggested cut-off point, which is around 18*:*5*kg/m*2, malnutrition is indicated. Women who are malnourished (thinness or obesity) may have complications during childbirth and may deliver a child who can be wasted, stunted or underweight. The results indicate that there is an association between the thinness of the mother and the nutritional status of the child.

#### **4.11 Mother's age at birth**

The results show that the influence of mothers who are younger than 20 years is higher on the nutritional status of children.

A possible cause for this is childbirth among very young girls, whose bodies are not physically ready to endure the processes of childbirth. The problem is compounded by the fact that some African countries have poor obstetric care. Furthermore, these mothers could not reach health facilities, or, when they do, it is too late. Effective ways must be devised to delay age at first marriage and first birth. These two factors will almost certainly determine the number of children she will have in her lifetime. While early age at first birth has health implications, it also has economic implications.

In addition, one study obtained in Nigeria reported that younger mothers (teenagers) are less likely in comparison to older mothers to breastfeed their children after birth, which means that the age of the mother at birth of a child influences whether the child will receive colostrum or not, which might affect the nutritional status of children (Adebayo and Fahrmeir 2005).

Moreover, previous studies which were obtained in some developing countries have shown that some African countries do not allow girls back to go back school after they give birth. As a consequence, a girl who drops out of school will continue the cycle of poverty(Alderman H 1997; Wasao; 1999).
