Rural child malnutrition and unsuccessful outcome of food basket programme: does ethnicity matter?

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of malnutrition among five-year-olds and factors associated with unsuccessful outcome of a Food Basket Programme (FBP) in a rural district of Kelantan, Malaysia.

Design: Administrative health records from selected health clinics were reviewed. Study sample includes indigenous population or Orang Asli of Malaysia. Unsuccessful outcome was defined according to failure to complete the programme according to growth gain and on-time. Multiple logistics regression was used to assess the associated factors of unsuccessful outcome of FBP.

Results: This study showed that the prevalence rates of malnutrition among children below five years old were 34.2% underweight, 16.4% thinness, 32.5% stunting and 3.0% overweight, with Orang Asli children faring the worse. Orang Asli children were also five times more likely to be unsuccessful in the FBP (p < .001).

Conclusion: Malnutrition is still prevalent among children below five years old in this rural setting and Orang Asli children are vulnerable to have an unsuccessful outcome from the Food Basket Programme. Further research is necessary to further explain this association to inform policy, specifically for Orang Asli children.

KEYWORDS:

• Malnutrition
• food basket programme
• Orang Asli
• indigenous
• ethnicity

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Director General of Health, Malaysia for data collection at government health clinics. The authors’ gratitude and appreciation also go to the health staffs at the health clinics and Department of Health, Gua Musang for their assistance during data collection.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.