Malnutrition of African Students

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Malnutrition of African Students

In this paper, I shall discuss the effects of malnutrition of children in Africa and the effect it has on their school performance. I will also examine what has been done to improve the problem of starvation and the long road ahead to solve this issue. I believe this problem is very serious and should not be over looked by other countries.

So many children wake up hungry and go to bed famished in Africa. Their days are hard to get through and the idea of going to school and having to concentrate is almost an impossible task. Many children have no energy and lose the ambition to get an education. An example I found while researching was of a young girl named Kede Fatuma, who is a starving child living in Ethiopia who once took pride in her education and her great ability as a runner. “These days, however, food is scarce in Dere Kiltu. Kede, 10, has neither the time nor the strength to keep up with her running. In fact, she no longer goes to school at all. Instead, she uses her limited energy to help her family collect water, an effort that involves a two-hour walk to the nearest stream (www.washingtonpost.com).” This is an example that is sadly true of many children living in Africa.

In recent studies, they have shown that those children who eat a healthy breakfast to start off their day are proven to have higher test scores, stay alert through out the school day, are able to concentrate, and are more likely to attend school. So as a result of having a balanced diet, children are able to retain more information and learn more in the end.

In the subjects of math and science which involve a lot of concentration, Africa was shown to have very low scores as compared to other countries that are not stricken

by hunger and poverty. In a study done on one school in Zimbabwe, they found that many of the students in the class were continuously falling asleep. The reason they

found for this was exhaustion caused by lack of food. The majority of the children only receive one meal a day. Other poorer children beg their neighbors for food and often receive only a small portion of cornmeal.

Hunger affects many parts of Africa and it is a growing problem that is the cause of many deaths each year.

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