Purpose – Improving the health of children under the age of five is one of the main objectives of primary healthcare services in most developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to identify the nutritional status of children under the age of five and its impact on cognitive function. Design/methodology/approach – The cross-sectional study was carried out in a semi-urban community in south-western Nigeria. The sample consisted of 220 school children under the age of five. Anthropometric measurements including weight, height and mid arm circumference were carried out to determine the nutritional status of the children. Cognitive function of the children was assessed using a developmental checklist developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and their performance was graded as good, fair and poor. Findings – The overall prevalence of malnutrition in this study was low with stunting, underweight and wasting recording 8.2, 6.8 and 1.8 percent, respectively thereby making stunting the most common malnutrition indicator in this study. A large proportion of the children (88.6 percent) had good cognitive performance while 11.4 and 5.5 percent had fair and poor cognitive performance, respectively. Among the various malnutrition indicators measured in this study, stunting was found to have a statistically significant association with cognitive development (p=0.005).Stunted children have multiple functional disadvantages that persist throughout childhood and poor nutrition almost certainly plays a role. This paper calls for a need for the Nigerian Government to intervene by ensuring that policies are implemented that will ensure that health and nutritional needs of preschool children are guaranteed right from conception. Originality/value – In view of the importance of nutrition for cognition in children, this research has shown that the cognitive function of preschool children can be affected by stunting and it has contributed to global data on nutrition and cognition particularly in South-Western Nigeria.

Lagos, Nigeria Ben-Bassey et al. [7] reported overall prevalence rates of overweight and obesity in the urban and rural areas to be 3.7% and 0.4%, and 3.0% and 0.0%, respectively. Furthermore, the prevalence rates of obesity and being overweight in a study carried out in Cross River, Nigeria were 1.7% and 6.8%, respectively [8]. Considering the importance of obesity complications for the health state of society and its increasing rate, careful evaluation, monitoring and follow up of obesity in children and adolescents should be a great importance. Therefore, the aim of this study was to find the prevalence of obesity in Nigerian adolescents in an urban community. Subjects and Methods Subject and sample size The subjects were urban adolescent attending Senior Secondary School Children in the age group of 12-18 years in Oyo State, Nigeria. Subjects were selected from Government and Private schools, in order to recruit them from different socioeconomic strata. Total sample size was 821 respondents from both public (447) and private (375) Schools in the selected Local Government Areas. Methodology The study was descriptive and cross-sectional covering public and private secondary schools in Ibadan North and Ibadan SouthWest Local Government Areas of Oyo State. Data was collected during 2011/2012 academic session (second term). Sampling procedure The samples for this study were drawn from 20 public and private secondary schools within the two selected local government area (Ibadan North and Ibadan SouthWest) of Oyo State, Nigeria. The schools were randomly selected from a list of all the schools in the local government areas. Twenty schools were the targeted study sample. Respondents were selected using multistage sampling techniques. Both boys and girls were eligible to participate in the study.

Background: Bread is one of the most popular bakery products whose consumption is increasing in many countries, including Nigeria, as a result of urbanization. This can be leveraged to develop bread with improved nutritional and health benefits. Objective: The study aimed to produce and analyze the nutritional and sensory qualities of bread made from wheat flour and beetroot powder. Materials and Methods: The research design was experimental. Samples were analyzed chemically according to the Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC) methods. All analyses were carried out in Triplicate. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS statistics version 20 while ANOVA was used to compare different variables together. Results: The results showed significant differences (p < 0.05) in the proximate, mineral, and antioxidant content of the bread samples. However, there was no significant difference (p < 0.05) in the sensory attributes of the bread samples. Moisture content was lowest while crude fibre was highest in sample B. Sample A had the highest moisture (30.34 ± 0.12%) and carbohydrate content (49.00 ± 0.18%). The highest amount of crude protein (10.59 ± 0.04%), crude fibre (1.08 ± 0.04%), and total ash (2.39 ± 0.02%) was found in Sample D. Zinc, iron, β-Carotene, and lycopene (mg/100 g) were highest in sample A while sample D had the highest vitamin C content. Sample C had the most preferred colour (6.87 ± 1.63) and aroma (6.33 ± 1.61) but the least preferred taste (5.77 ± 1.61). Sample A had the most preferred texture (6.60 ± 1.52), taste (6.07 ± 1.36), and overall acceptability (6.57 ± 1.17). Conclusion: Bread produced from whole wheat flour and beetroot powder has improved nutritional value and can be consumed by healthy individuals and people requiring high fibre diets to maintain good nutritional status.

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