ABSTRACT

This study assessed the food security and anthropometric status of adolescent school girls in Enugu East Local Government Area, Enugu State. The study was a cross-sectional study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 300 adolescent girls. Data on personal information of the adolescents and socio-economic status of their parents, food security and anthropometry collected using standard processes were collected using structured, pretested and validated questionnaire. Anthropometry was collected using standard procedures. The IBM SPSS version 22.0 computer programme was used to analyze the data. WHO anthro plus was used to analyze the anthropometric status of adolescents. Data obtained were presented using frequency and percentage. Chi-square was used to analyze the relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the parents, food security status and anthropometric status of the adolescent girls. Result from the study showed that some (39.3%) of the adolescent girls were in JSS 2 and majority (98.0%) of them were Christians. Some (35% and 34.7%) of both their fathers and mothers respectively were civil servants while most (60.3% and 60.7%) of them attained higher institution. More than half (58.3%) of the adolescents were food insecure of which 35.3% of them were mildly food insecure, 14% and 9% of them were moderately and severely food insecure. Meanwhile, 21.3% of the adolescent girls were overweight, 5.3% of them were obese while 1.0% were thin (underweight). The prevalence of stunting in the study was 1.7%. However, there was a significant association between food security status of the adolescents and the occupation of their mothers, educational qualification of their fathers and educational qualification of their mothers. Given that adolescence is the second period in life with rapid growth and development, improving food security status of this sensitive segment of the population is to be an agenda of all concerned bodies.