ABSTRACT

The study focused on effect of food consumption pattern and physical activity on nutritional status of undergraduate students of Federal University of Technology Owerri (FUTO), Imo State. A total of 400 students were randomly selected. A validated questionnaire was used to obtain information from the respondents, Anthropometric measurements of the undergraduate students were taken and their Body Mass Indexes were calculated. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. From the study, result showed that 44.0% of the students ate twice per day, rice and beans was the most preferred meal by the undergraduate students. The food frequency result revealed that almost all the food groups were consumed on daily basis, as noodles (59.75%), palm oil (59.25%) and tomatoes (49.75%), cassava (fufu) 50.5% was mostly consumed weekly. Differences was observed in the physical activities level of the students as football (43.20%) was the highest for male and swimming (43. 40%) for females. The body Mass Indexes of the students showed that a fair proportion (73%) ofthe students fell within the normal body mass index while the prevalence of obesity was 32.99% for male and 28.3% for the females. The Pearson correlation analysis showed a positive correlation between nineteen (19) physical activity carried out by the students on their nutritional status which include Aerobics, Basketball/softball, Swimming, Running orjogging, Gymnastic, Football, Bike riding, Household chores, going to school by trekking, skipping, walk for exercise/hiking, Watching videos/TV, Reading, Talk on phone, Playing computer game, Using computer/internet, sitting/walking , Listen to much and doing homework, while skate boarding and going to school by cycling had a negative coefficienton their nutritional status. Hence, the students should pay more attention on their food consumption pattern and also encourage themselves to engage in exercises on daily basis.