Nutritional Status and Associated Factors of Adolescent School Girls, Goba Town, Southeast Ethiopia
Background: Despite the fact that, Having adequate information on the nutritional status of adolescent girls do have paramount importance to foster a healthy transition from childhood to adulthood and to broken the intergenerational cycle of malnutrition, in Ethiopia particularly in the study area information regarding the nutritional status of adolescents is lacking. Methods and procedure: An institution based cross sectional study design was employed. A total of 598 adolescent school girls were selected using simple random sampling methods. Data were collected using interviewer administered questionnaire and anthropometric measurements. Anthropometric measurements were converted to height-for age zscores and BMI-for-age z-scores using WHO Anthroplus software. The nutritional status of the study subjects were classified as stunted (HAZ < =2SD) and thin (BAZ < −2 SDD). Data were Analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Descriptive statistics was done. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with stunting and thinness. Then the variables found significantly associated were included in multiple logistic regressions to identify the independent predictors of thinness and stunting. Finally, P value of ≤ 0.05 used to declare significance. Results: The overall prevalence of thinness and stunting among school adolescent girls was 11.9% and 20.9 % respectively. Early adolescent girls (age =14). Adolescent girls whose mothers had no formal education were 9.6 (AOR=9.6 CI: 2.6-23.3), mothers who can read and write were 7.6 (AOR =7.6, 95% CI: 2.2 – 19.1) and mothers who had primary education were 5.2 (AOR= 5.2, 95%CI: 1.4 – 17.4) times more likely to be thin as compared to those mothers who had college and above education level. Adolescent girls with inadequate dietary diversity score were 2.7 (AOR =2.7, 95% CI: 1.5-5.04) time
