A Systematic Study of the Knowledge and Perception of Malnutrition on Academic Performance among Public Secondary Schoolstudents in Ondo State, Nigeria

Malnutrition has a long term consequence on intellectual ability, economic productivity, reproduction performance and susceptibility to diseases in Nigeria, it was estimated that 2 million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) among children of school age. It is in the light of the above that this study aims at assessing knowledge and perception of malnutrition on academic performance among students of government – owned secondary schools in Ondo state. A descriptive cross-sectional design was used for this investigation. The sample consists of three hundred and eighty four (384) Students drawn from six selected Public Secondary Schools across the three senatorial Districts in Ondo State. A systematic sampling technique was used to select the participants from the study population using their school registers. The field work was carried out between February and May 2023. Data were collected through questionnaire and the results were analyzed using descriptive statistics (Frequency table, percentage, standard deviation, mean and numbers) and inferential statistics (chi- square) using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS). The result of the study showed that majority of the respondents have good knowledge and perception of malnutrition as 381 representing 97.2% of the respondents agreed that non-availability of food at home can make children to be malnourished, Also 97.2% of the respondents equally agreed that poor financial status of parents contributed to the issue of malnutrition among learners. In the same vein, 380 of the respondents representing 98% agreed that large family size contributed to malnutrition. The result further showed that there is significant relationship between the knowledge of malnutrition of the respondents and academic performance (r =3.0, p< 0.000). Also, there is significant relationship between perception of malnutrition and academic performance (r = 2.755, p < 0.000).Similarly, the findings further showed that there is a significant relationship between the respondents age and malnutrition (r =5.643, p< 0.000). Conclusively, the study reveals that the respondents have good knowledge and perception of malnutrition. They equally agreed that malnutrition has negative effects on their academic performance. However, it is recommended that government should introduce comprehensive nutrition education among the target population, advocate birth control among adults of reproductive age, introduce efficient poverty alleviation programmers’ and policies, improve on the home grown School feeding Programmes and extend it to Secondary Schools among other interventions so as to frontally address the problem of malnutrition among Students. Suggestions for future research are provided.