Assessment of Prevalence and Associated Factors of under Nutrition among School Adolescents in Hawzen Woreda, Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia

Introduction: Adolescence is a period of rapid growth and maturation in human development that demands extra nutrients and energy to support growth. Due to increased nutritional requirement, poor dietary diversity and dietary inadequacies during the adolescent period, they are more vulnerable to under-nutrition. Focusing on adolescents’ nutrition, especially girls, provides a unique opportunity to break the intergenerational cycles of malnutrition

Methods: Institutional based cross-sectional study was conducted on 398 school adolescents in Hawzen Woreda, Eastern Tigray northern Ethiopia. Study participants were selected by using systematic random sampling method from five schools. Data was collected using self-administered questionnaire. Beam balance and tap meter were used for anthropometric data. Entry and analysis of data were done by SPSS (version 20). WHO Anthro plus software was used to calculate body mass index for age and height for age. Multivariate logistic regression was used to predict the factors associated with under-nutrition.

Results: The result of this study showed that 32.2% of school adolescents were underweight, 0.3% and 33.2% were overweight and stunted respectively. The rate being underweight was higher in those adolescents born to illiterate fathers (AOR =1.94(1.19, 1.99)) family income less than 500 birr (AOR=1.37(1.23 - 7.32)) and large family size (> 4) (AOR=1.49(1.42 - 5.19)) . Adolescent born to illiterate mothers had 1.78 times chance of being underweight. The same variables had shown significant association with stunting. Adolescents who did not eat meat and other animal products had 2.3 times more chance of being stunted

Conclusion: The result of this study have shown strong relationship of both underweight and stunting with father's & mother's educational status, family income and size.