Author : Araño, Rosemarie G.

Summary : The study determined the extent of malnutrition among pre-school children; evaluated the relationship of socio-economic varialbles such as income, occupation of parents, household size, food expenditure, educational attainment of parents, and foof production to the nutritional status of pre-schoolers; and examined the relationship of environmental sanitation and its individual categories to the nutritional status of pre-schoolers. Five hundred ninety-five randomly selected pre-schoolers and their parents in five barangays of Batangas and Laguna. were surveyed. Secondary data from the benchmark survey of the UPLB Nutrition Improvement Model (NIM) Project in June 1978 Operation Timbang (OPT) report were also used. Frequency distributions, percentages, arithmetic means, Chi-square test, and simple correlation were used in analyzing the data. Results showed that the majority of the pre-school children were malnourished in varying degrees. Parents had low educational attainment and most of the households belonged to the low-income category. Fathers were mostly mechanics, drivers, laborers, or were engaged in similar jobs. Mothers were mostly part-time housewives. The mean household size was rather large at 6.7. Food expenditure per week averaged P71.20. A number (45.9 percent) of households were engaged in food production activities. Environmental conditions revealed that households had toilets of different types, with the open pit type being predominant. Likewise, cesspool type of kitchen sewage was very commonly used. Most households just dumped garbage in the vicinity. Clay jars were usually used for water storage and artesian wells were the most common source of drinking, washing, and bathing water.