The Relationship between Health (Malnutrition) and Educational Achievements (Maths and English) in the Rural Children of South Africa

The purpose of this paper is to report the cross-sectional relationship between educational achievements and the "health status" of the rural South African children in the Ellisras Longitudinal Study (ELS). The study followed a cohort design where 1033 children (569 boys and 464 girls) aged 7-14 were randomly sampled from 11 primary schools and one secondary school. Anthropometric measurements for height for age (HAZ), weight for age (WAZ), body mass index (BMI) and sum of skinfolds (SOS) were carried out to establish their "health status". Educational achievement tests for Mathematics and English were administered to check their educational status. The results of the multilevel analysis showed that HAZ, WAZ and BMI were positively related to both English and Mathematics performance. HAZ was only positively related to mathematical performance and SOS was not related to educational achievement at all. Furthermore, age and gender only marginally influenced the observed relationships. The study recommends that other factors such as socio-economic status and learning environment should be looked into to find out whether these factors influence the observed relationships.