Association of Food Intake Patterns and Parents’ Educational Levels with Nutritional Statuses of School-Going Children (5-13 years old) in Rural Areas of Northern Bangladesh

Background and Objectives: Children malnutrition is a serious problem worldwide, especially in developing countries. The present study designed to investigate nutritional statuses and their associated risk factors in school-going children in Bangladesh. Materials and Methods: This study included 650 children (391 boys and 249 girls) aged 5–13 years old, living in the rural area of northern Bangladesh. Anthropometric measurement was carried out to measure the nutritional statuses of the participants. The participants were asked for their dietary history. Food frequency questionnaire was used to collect dietary intake information. All participants were interviewed about their personal characteristics and health conditions. All information were recorded in questionnaires. Results: Result of the study raveled that nutritional status of 37.53% of the participants were good and the rest were malnourished. Results demonstrated dominant underweight (boys, 50.38% and girls, 63.85%), wasting (42.19% of boys and 67.46% of girls) and stunting (boys, 47.05% girls, 77.51 %.) within the participants. Furthermore, study raveled that educational levels of the parents were low that might affect dietary intakes of the children and result in high prevalence of malnutrition in the studied area. Conclusions: It is concluded that the parents’ educational levels were highly important for the nutritional statuses of the children. Girls were more malnourished than boys in this study. This study have suggested further assessment of the socioeconomic statuses of the households in relation to children malnutrition.