ABSTRACT

Food insecurity is a growing public health issue and a barrier to students achieving adequate nutrition. This study assesses food insecurity, physical activity and anthropometric status among undergraduate students in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike. The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 440 undergraduate students. Data on socio demographic characteristics of the students, food security status, coping strategy and physical activity of the students were collected using structured and validated questionnaire, anthropometric measurement was carried out using standard procedure. The IBM SPSS version 25.0 computer programme was used to analyze the data. Data obtained were described using frequency and percentage. Regression was used to analyze the relationship between food insecurity, coping strategy and anthropometric status of the respondents. Significant relationship was judged at p ≤ 0.05. Result revealed that majority (48.5%) of the participants in this study were less than 23-26 years old and majority (87.0%) were single. More than half (61.1%) of them were female who lived on campus (61.1%). The prevalence of food insecurity among the respondents was high (78.3%); with 16.9% being moderately food insecure and 1.1% of them being mildly food insecure. Their coping strategy showed that the respondents had a varied coping strategy ranging from high (95.4%), medium (3.7%), low (0.9%). Majority (86.5%) of the respondents prepared their own meals. While inside the campus, some (12.4%) of the respondents get their foods in restaurants and more than half (51.5%) of the respondents had changed their eating habit since they started attending University. Their physical activity level showed that more (87.0%) of them had a low physical activity level, very few (4.6%) were moderately physically active while 8.5% had high physical activity level. The prevalence of overweight and obesity among the respondents were 31.0% and 11.0% respectively. However, 56.8% of the respondents were normal, while 8.5% were obese. The waist circumference and waist hip ratio of the respondents shows that 55.5% were safe, while 44.2% were at risk. There is a significant relationship (P Judged at 0.05) existed between food insecurity, coping strategy and anthropometric status. Respondents who were mildly/moderately food insecure are 51% less likely to be overweight/obese than their other counterpart.  While those who were mildly/moderately food insecure are 91% less likely to be Normal. To achieve food security, all four components such as food availability, accessibility, utilization and stability must be present. Therefore, both governmental and non-governmental organizations working in nutrition sensitive and nutrition specific program should perform their tasks in averting unacceptably high prevalence of food insecurity in households and among University students.