Effect of Water Sources on Wasting of Under Five Years Old Children in Nigerian Rural Households

Wasting in developing economies like Nigeria is strongly linked to sources of water consumed by children under five. This linkage matters as water has been linked to all four pillars of food and security. This paper, therefore, helps to address a gap in the literature on how sources of water are linked to wasting in under five children in Nigeria. Panel data from the three waves of the Living Standard Measurement survey of households in Nigeria, a representative of Africa’s most populous nation, was used for the study. Only households in rural Nigeria were used since majority of rural households are farmers. The empirical approach includes regressions with household random effects to account for time-invariant unobserved and observed characteristics that could jointly determine wasting. It was found that pipe-borne water decreased the probability of wasting while borehole and well increased the probability of wasting in children under five. Specifically, pipe-borne water decreased the probability of wasting marginally by 0.02at the 5 percent level of significance while borehole on average increased the probability of wasting by 0.09at the1 percent level of significance and well increased the probability of wasting by 0.13at the 1 percent level of significance implying these secured sources of water might not necessarily be safe for direct consumption by children. Our finding is relevant to future policies on nutrition education for mothers to improve the nutrition of their children.