ABSTRACT

 This study was carried out to compare the nutritional status of Day and - Boarder adolescent students in two selected secondary schools in Okigwe Urban of Imo state. The aim of the study was to obtain baseline data needed for planning an approprine programme for healthy feeding and improvement ol nutritional status of secondary school adolescents. A structured and validated questionnaire by the lecturers in Department of Human Nutrition and Dietetics was used to elicit information on socio-demographic, feeding habits, nutrition knowledge and status of' adolescents. One hundred and sixty adolescents, comprising of 80 Day and Boarder S students respectively, were randomly selected from the two schools and used for (lie study. Data obtained from the study were subjected to statistical analysis using frequency, percentages, means and standard deviation and analysis of variance. ('hi square test was also used to compare the nutrition knowledge and status of Day and Boarder students. The result revealed that most Day students had li1lieis who were Farmers (72.7%) and teachers (76.0%) and housewife mothers (83.3%) while [lie Boarders had civil servant fathers (61.0%) and mothers (65.5%). High degree of' meal skipping among boarders (53.6%) was mostly because they did not like the food (84.8%) while Day students (46.4%) skip meal due to religious reasons (85.7%). Also most Day students snacked outside (lie school premises (83.3%) while 59.6% oC Boarders snacked inside the school premises. Daily intake of fits and vegetables was, very poor with orange being (lie iiiost (20.9%) consumed huh. • Nutrition knowledge of the students was generally found to be poor with only 33.1% having I 5points (good score) and 5.0% having 20 points (excellent score). The study showed that the students had a mean body mass index (13M1) of 19.80kg/rn2with Day students having a significantly higher (P<0.05) BMI (20.61kg/rn2) than the Boarders (19.00kg/rn2). The prevalence of underweight in this study was 38.1% with majority (63.3%) being Boarders and males (80.3%). Five percent of the students were overweight (equally distributed in both sexes) of which 87.5% were Day students. In this study, the parents occupation did not significantly influence (P>0.05) the BMI status of the adolescent students studied