Community Health Nursing Essay

CHAPTER I

Introduction

Childhood is the important and sensitive period in human life and it includes important aspects of growth and development. Middle childhood (ages 6-12 years) have critical & long lasting effects on learning, health & wellbeing and are powerful predictors of adolescent adjustment and adult success. Early period of life are the most important in building a foundation for all future development as acquisition of positive sense of self and ability to trust others (Frances & Claudia, 2014).

Nutrition is a vital component to our lives. Although breathing is the most basic function for life, we cannot survive devoid of food hydration. Without proper nutrition basic body operation are diminished, normal growth is altered and

The community involvement in health school services is considered very essential for providing comprehensive health care. Community health nurse has collaboration with community recourses that help school nurse to improve health services inside school (Schwab & Hass, 2010). School health nurse plays a vital and very important role to enhance the educational process by the modification or removal of healthy barriers to learning because health and learning go hand on hand (Mohamed, 2013) School health is a team function. The team should be involving medical officer, school health nurse, health worker, teachers, parents, students and representative personnel from the community. The school health nurse is responsible for comprehensive services which include major emphasis of prevention, promotion, and health education for students, parents, school teachers (Road, 2012).

Significance of the

Insufficient nutrition intake has significant implication because malnutrition has been shown to harmfully affect cognitive development of primary school children, and affects children 's interaction with school teachers & their ability to pass in their studies. Prevalence of child malnutrition in Egypt is 29 percent, which makes it one of the 36 high burden countries of the world (UNICEF, World Bank & WHO, 2011).

A more recent study in Egypt approved that prevalence of obesity was 8% among 5798 Egyptian school student & the prevalence of overweight was 11% (Hassan, EL masry, Fouad & Zaki, 2011). Another study conducted in Egypt by Abdelaziz , Youssef & Sedrak, (2015) indicated that, nutrition status regarding WHO reference growth curve is 10% of the students less than 10 years were underweight, 53.2% of the whole sample were stunted, where as BMI 2.8% (underweight) and 34.4% (obese). A study conducted in Egypt by El-Zanaty & Way, (2009) revealed that, the causes of nutritional problems in Egypt are a function of many factors most of them were food insecure because of low income, high food prices and low local agricultural production, in addition to poor dietary practices due to lack of awareness, and inadequate health service provision capacities. There are also the problems of environmental pollution and food safety challenges due to lack of enforcement of existing