ABSTRACT

Dietary habit of adolescents particularly girls have been described as not the best, due to their busy schedules, peer pressure and interdependent nature of the behavour. It is therefore important that adolescents have reliable nutrition information that will guide them to make informed decisions regarding their dietary patterns and practices. The aim was to assess the nutritional status of adolescent girls in Obowo local government area, Imo state. A total of 394 adolescent girls were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. A questionnaire assessing the socio-economic status of the respondents, dietary habits, nutrition knowledge, and food frequency was administered to the participants. Anthropometric measurements was also taken which was assessed using WHO anthrop plus in classifying them into Height-for-age and BMI-for-age. Data were cleaned, coded and analyzed using SPSS Version 20.0. Some (40.9%) were within the age 14-16 years. More than half (52%) skipped meals. Out of which 33% skipped breakfast due to lack of time (7.9%) and lack of appetite (7.9%). Majority (96.7%) consumed snack such as egg roll/meatpie (37.6%), biscuit/drinks (30.7%) and gala (28.4%), daily (28.9%). About 37.6% usually eat when they were hungry and anytime. Most (60.7%) usually eat at home. Prevalence of stunting, underweight and overweight in this study was 8.4%, 2.3% and 5.3%, respectively. Majority (81.0%) had poor knowledge of nutrition while 17.5% and 1.5% had good and excellent knowledge of nutrition. There was significant difference (p>0.05) between the Height-for-age, BMI-for-age and their nutrition knowledge. About 25.9%, 27.4%, 25.4%, 19.3%, 26.4%, 27.2%, 20.3%, 22.8%, 23.9% and 16.5% consumed foods such as bread, golden morn, beans (moimoi, akara), goat meat, liquid milk, cheese, cocoyam, avocado pea, mango and curry leaf once a week. In conclusion, snacking should complement food but should not replace the three normal meals.