Optimal dietary practices and nutritional knowledge of school adolescent girls in Jimma Town, South West Ethiopia

Yabsira Melaku,Anteneh Dirar,Garumma Tolu Feyissa,Dessalegn Tamiru

doi:10.1080/02673843.2017.1369889

Yabsira Melaku, Anteneh Dirar + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/02673843.2017.1369889

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Abstract

Addressing the nutritional problems of adolescent girls is important as their nutritional status has a negative effect on the future generation. This study aimed to assess the optimal dietary practices and nutritional knowledge of school adolescent girls in Jimma Zone, South-west Ethiopia. School-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 455 school adolescent girls. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify independent variables. Majority (61.3%) of students had dietary diversity score less than five and their mean (±SD) dietary diversity score was 4.34 ± 1.41. The majority (55.8%) of adolescent girls had a good knowledge score about nutrition related information which they earned from the school (86.6%). Low dietary diversity of school adolescent girls was positively associated with attending government schools, lack of maternal education and low-economic status. Therefore, both government and non-government organizations need to focus on school and community based nutrition intervention to address the low dietary diversity of school girl adolescents.

Highlights

Adolescent girl malnutrition is a common nutritional problem due to poor diet and lack of health care service in the developing world
This study demonstrated that the prevalence of low dietary diversity among high school adolescent girls in Jimma town was high (61.3%) which is relatively high when compared to study from Aksum town where 56% of the participants had DDS less than 3.4 (Weldehaweria et al, 2016)
This finding is relatively low when compared to study done in Jimma town where 88% of school adolescents consumed greater than five food groups (Gali, Tamiru, & Tamrat, 2017)

Summary

Introduction

Adolescent girl malnutrition is a common nutritional problem due to poor diet and lack of health care service in the developing world. Adolescents may no longer benefit from the attention and care that usually go to children, but they may not get the protections associated with adulthood either. Adolescent has typically being considered as low risk of poor health and often receive few health care resource and less attention. This approach ignores the fact that many health problems later in life can be improved by adapting healthier life style habit during adolescence (WHO, 2009)

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