Background: Malnutrition is one of the most important obstacles to the progress of a nation because it degrades its human resource. The aims of this study are to describe the nutritional status, the intelligence, and to analyse the relationship between the two in primary school children.
Methodology: This research was conducted at SDN Pasirangsana 01, Bogor regency in December 2016. Body weight, body height, skin fold thickness of biceps, triceps, subscapular, suprailiaca and posterior tibialis were obtained from 59 samples to determine nutritional status. The intelligence was based on Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM) test and academic performance score. In addition, the children were interviewed using a questionnaire to support the RPM test and academic performance. Descriptive statistics were used to describe nutritional status and the intelligence, and the Spearmen correlation test to analyze the correlation between nutritional status and intelligence variables.
Results: The prevalence of malnutrition comprising undernutrition (22%) and over nutrition (18% ) was apparently higher than that nationally. Based on the RPM test, the intelligence of almost half (42%) of the sample was below the average. Nutrition status was significantly correlated with RPM test results (R = 0.413, p = 0.001), and academic performance score (R = 0.320, p = 0.013). In addition to nutritional status, a number of internal and external factors also had a significant effect on children's intelligence. Triceps and subscapular skin folds could be used to detect over nutrition in children with the under curve areas (AUC) of 0.766 and 0.735, respectively. For under nutrition, only tricep skin-fold thickness had the discriminant power (AUC of 0.713).
Conclusion: Cases of malnutrition in elementary school children are still high and adversely affect the child's intelligence |