Mothers’ Socio-economic Background and Feeding Practices of Secondary Schools Students in Edo Central, Nigeria

Abstract

This article is on the effects of mothers' socio-economic background on the feeding practices of the secondary school students in Edo Central Zone, Edo State, Nigeria. The independent variables were mothers' socio-economic status. Food practices were the independent variables and these comprised intake of meat/ other sources of proteins, fruits/vegetables, milk products, grain products, roots/tubers and fat-sweets and non-alcoholic. The proportionate sampling technique was adopted in selecting the nine secondary schools while a total of five hundred and eighty-nine (589) adolescent secondary school students were randomly selected for the study. Findings showed that majority of the secondary school students was at the risk of poor nutritional habit because the majority of the students did not take the adequate/balanced diet; that appropriate feeding practice for the secondary school students was more popular with older mothers than their younger counterparts; that the food types were associated with the religious denominations and education of mothers; and that mothers' income status had positive influence on the feeding practices of the children. Consequently, it was recommended, among others that parents, guardians, school authorities, the lay public and the secondary school students should be given sound nutrition education to prevent food prejudices that forbid eating what is avail- able.