INTRODUCTION
A vast majority of individuals in the third world countries are not able to satisfy their nutritional requirements for growth and development. This leads to malnutrition, which is one of the major causes of death, particularly in infants and young children. Malnutrition can manifest as protein-energy malnutrition (PEM) and micronutrient deficiency. Micronutrients are involved in metabolism of energy nutrients and their deficiency may precipitate PEM as well as their specific deficiency diseases.
Despite the approaches on the past geared towards combating micronutrient deficiencies through supplementation in form of drugs, fortification of some food products and other measures, the problem still exists. This is because most people do not routinely take their supplements as they view it as drug and others abuse it as prescribed. Most of our fortified food products are costly and the poor in the rural communities and the low socio-economic groups cannot afford to purchase them. They depend on their cheaper and low micronutrient familiar unfortified products.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has classified Nigeria among the 34 countries in the world with serious problems of nutritional blindness and xerophtalmia. Data from Participatory Information Collection (PIC) survey done in Nigeria showed that the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency (VAD) in 1993 was 9.2% in children and 7.2% in mothers (FGN/UNICEF, G-1994). Iron deficiency anaemia affects more than 3.5 billion people in the developing world (UNICEF/UNU/WHO/MI, 1999).
It has been noted that the prevalence of these micronutrients deficiencies are more in developing countries than in developed countries. WHO/OMS (2003) reported that VAD is a public health problem in 118 countries, especially in Africa and South-East Asia. Young children and pregnant women are vulnerable. The most affected groups in developing countries are pregnant women (56%), school-age children (53%), non-pregnant women (44.6%) and preschool children (42%) (ACC/SCN, 2000).
The problems associated with these micronutrient deficiencies are much and irreversible proceeding death. In children, it greatly increases the chances of morbidity and disability. Maternal night blindness was associated with almost four fold increase in the risk of mortality (Christian et al., 2000).
Based on the diverse effects of iron and vitamin A deficiencies, it is important that preventive measures capable of combating these deficiencies be adopted, especially diversification of diets at the reach of the low income groups.
1.1 Background to the study
| Project details | Contents |
|---|---|
| Number of Pages | 72 pages |
| Chapter one | Introduction |
| Chapter two | Literature review |
| Chapter three | methodology |
| Chapter four | Data analysis |
| Chapter five | Summary,discussion & recommendations |
| Reference | Reference |
| Questionnaire | Questionnaire |
| Appendix | Appendix |
| Chapter summary | 1 to 5 chapters |
| Available document | PDF and MS-word format |
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