Determinants of child nutrition in Malawi

The problem of malnutrition amongst children under 5 in Africa has worsened in recent years following increasing levels of poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In Malawi the available statistics are shocking: half of the children below the age of five years are too short for their age (stunted); 25 percent are too thin for their age (underweight); 5 percent are too thin for their height (wasted). Among children aged between 3 to 36 months, Malawi has the largest population of stunted children in Sub-Saharan Africa (Africa Regional DHS Nutrition and Family Health Analytical Initiative Project, 1994).

This paper investigates factors that determine child malnutrition in Malawi using data from the first Integrated Household Survey (IHS1) conducted in 1998. The study finds that child malnutrition worsens with age until a certain critical age when it starts to improve as the child grows older and that boys are more at risk than girls.

The paper makes the following policy recommendations:

• the authors find that child characteristics – sex, age and illness – are important determinants of children nutritional status across all three anthropometric measures of nutrition
• the U-shape relationship between age and nutritional status of children, suggests the need to ensure that malnutrition intervention is more concentrated in early childhood when children’s nutrition status is seen to worsen with age
• the significance of higher education levels, at least secondary education, for both male and female parents or household head, suggests that assimilation of nutritional messages may require more than basic education to be more effective.
• measures must be put in place to improve people’s living conditions with the ultimate objective of pulling them out of poverty.