Low UTME scores or chronic malnutrition?
Many years ago, a group of us were sitting in the hospital lounge, gisting and complaining about our lives in general. The topic, predictably, soon turned to the issue of domestic help and their many travails. One of my friends complained how daft her middle-aged house-help was. Apparently, she had been with the woman for […]
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Many years ago, a group of us were sitting in the hospital lounge, gisting and complaining about our lives in general. The topic, predictably, soon turned to the issue of domestic help and their many travails. One of my friends complained how daft her middle-aged house-help was. Apparently, she had been with the woman for seven years, and every day, the woman would come to work and then, ask her madam, ‘Hajiya, mai zanyi yau?’ (Madam what will I do today?)
Seven years and the woman still needed her work duties to be spelt out to her every day. As in: ‘Why did you not sweep the room? You did not tell me to. Every day? I have to tell you every day?’
Another doctor told us about her husband’s driver who was so foolish that he kept getting lost on the way to the airport. Her husband was a top shot bank manager who was always travelling to Abuja and Lagos for meetings at the headquarters, so the airport route should be mastered like the lines on the palms of his hands.
But for where? The man kept getting lost until her husband fired him one day after missing his flight. He said the man was too dull for the job.
The funniest story, however, was about a teenage house-help who kept mixing up food ingredients and menus. My highly organised friend had a printed menu on her fridge, which she had taken precious time to orient her maid about. She figured that three months were enough time for the girl to get a hang of it, but for where? Every day she would wait until my friend returned from work, tired and beat at 5pm to ask: ‘Doctor, what will we make for lunch?’
Lunch at 5pm?
Amidst laughter and exasperation, an experienced paediatrician explained the pathology to us. She described to us that a lot of these unskilled workers who come from low-income householders suffered from chronic micro and macro nutrient deficiency.
At the time, what she said did not seem fair. It felt elitist with a tad of classism and superiority complex. So, because my children drink Peak milk and Friso Gold, they should perform better than those who drink ‘koko’? Frankly, it sounds ridiculous.
I went back to my books and the internet where I found hundreds of studies on the relationship between malnutrition (caused by poverty) and Intelligent Quotient (IQ). However, for the purpose of brevity, I will focus on only one – the Barbados Nutrition Study.
In the study, young school age children who were reared in conditions of significant poverty that could have affected their development were compared with the case-control of healthy children from the same neighbourhoods and classrooms. The children were also enrolled in a nutritional intervention programme following their hospitalisation, which monitored and assured adequate nutrition and good health, at least to age 12. Thus, for these individuals, the malnutrition episode can be assumed to have been limited to the first year of life. Importantly, detailed data on socioeconomic circumstances were collected at multiple time points during childhood and adolescence so that potentially confounding effects of standard of living on IQ and academic achievement could be estimated.
The primary finding from the Barbados Nutrition Study was that although the previously malnourished children achieved complete catch-up in their physical growth by adolescence, their cognitive and behavioural development remained adversely affected. Compared to a healthy control group from the same social environment, they had lower IQ, more attention problems, and lower grades in school. Their performance on the Common Entrance Examination, a standard academic competency test administered to all Barbadian children at age 11 to determine high school placement, was also poorer.
This, I believe is what happens in Nigeria.
Adequate nutrition in the early years of life is crucial for brain development. Laboratory studies have documented that pre and post-natal nutritional deprivation can result in long-term alteration of structural and functional brain development, and further, that these alterations are correlated with compromise of learning and memory.
Moreover, there is ample documentation showing that previously malnourished and growth-stunted children display both cognitive and behavioural compromise in childhood and adolescence, presumed to reflect the impact of the malnutrition on the developing brain.
This explanation makes complete sense when dealing with domestic staff. But then, when you think about it, it also does not make sense when you meet academically challenged or simply dull people from rich homes. What is their excuse? Their Nido milk was not fortified enough? Or was their Kellogg’s’ cereal expired?
The truth is that, in addition to nutrition, which is required for brain development, genetics and most importantly environment play a huge role in determining a person’s IQ. I have met people who struggled throughout primary school but excelled later in life because of sheer grit and determination. I have also met star students in primary and secondary schools who progressively declined academically at university levels because of lack of motivation and bad company.
Like Nigerians say: ‘This life no balance.’
The recent hullabaloo about Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scores, an academic exercise conducted by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), got me wondering: Does our consistently declining scores over the years have anything to do with the increasing rate of malnutrition across Nigeria? Is it not true that the North-West part of the country, which persistently has the lowest scores, also is the highest in terms of childhood malnutrition?
Growling stomachs, fatigue and brain fog. Every day, millions of kids in Nigeria, especially in rural areas, go to school on empty stomachs. Nutritious food is essential not only for a child’s healthy growth but for their academic performance as well. We know that a hungry child cannot learn, a hungry child cannot grow and a hungry child cannot reach their full potential. It is just basic logic.
It takes a lot of energy to think. In fact, about 20 per cent of our daily calories are used as fuel for our brains. Some studies tell us that more challenging cognitive work burns more calories. I believe that. Whenever I am done studying or working on my computer, especially at night, the kind of hunger pangs I get can only be solved by cold Ijebu garri.
For a child’s brain to develop, they need a host of essential nutrients from the right balance of protein, fats and carbohydrates to vitamins, minerals and water. Micronutrients like iron, zinc, choline, iodine, folate, B12, and healthy fats are also vital to cognitive development and learning.
Without the right nutrition, children’s healthy development is put at risk. Nutrient shortages can reduce brain cell production, impact cell size and complexity and even lead to less efficient communication between brain cells. This could result in slower language development, impaired fined motor skills and lower IQ, all of which cause negative impacts on a child’s life in and out of the classroom.
I have watched the video of the JAMB registrar apologising over the scores because of some technical glitches. He promised that the students would re-sit the exams and hopefully do better. I disagree. However, I did agree with him the first time when he said the low UTME scores were due to the absence of exam malpractice.
That, and the issue of childhood malnutrition.