Nutritional Assessment of Primary School Pupils in Bokkos Local Government Area of Plateau State, Nigeria

This is a descriptive survey that was carried out to assess the nutritional status of school pupil in Bokkos. A multi-staged sampling technique was used. An interview guide (Structured Questionnaires) was used to obtain data from the pupils of the various primary schools in Bokkos. The result showed that 34% of the pupils are within the age range (7-9) years. and 17.5% of the pupils are of the age range of (13-15) years. Mean age of respondents was 6.6years. Furthermore the average height and weight of the respondents was 1.27m and 27kg respectively. The average body mass index of the study population is 12.6 kg/m 2. A null hypothesis tested at significant level of 0.05 suggested that, there is no/a significant relationship between BMI and gender. It was therefore concluded that the nutritional status of pupils in Bokkos is low. Recommendations like nutritional education on the constituent of food locally available in the community, and Government should subsidize agricultural inputs so as to encourage local farmers to produce crops that have high nutritional value among others were made. INTRODUCTION Millions of children in developing countries suffer from under nutrition. These children are prone to malnutrition because they are at a stage in their life when growth is rapid, nutritional requirements are high and the diet likely to be given to them are inadequate (Barrie and Michael 1999).