DIETARY PATTERN AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF ADOLESCENT IN PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN ILARO.

Abstract

This study investigated the dietary pattern and nutritional status of adolescent in Private Secondary Schools in Ilaro town. The specific objectives are to determine the socio economic characteristics of the adolescents, to assess the dietary pattern and nutritional status of the respondent and to know the relationship between dietary pattern and nutritional status of the adolescents. To achieve these, 200 questionnaires were administered. 4 private secondary schools were randomly selected for the study. Findings revealed that majority of the respondent were within the active age bracket of 10-19 years. The findings also showed that most of the respondent were females (55.5%) and (56.5%) were Muslims. However, findings on dietary pattern revealed that (58.5%) of the respondents do skip breakfast. Also, majority of the respondent eats trice daily. The nutritional test carried out showed that (54%) of the respondent were of normal body weight (18.5-24.9). Moreover, the second test carried out was the Pearson chi-square test which revealed that since the significant value was 0.000 at 5% level of significance, we accept our Hi which implies that there was significant relationship between the dietary pattern and nutritional status of the respondents