ABSTRACT

Adolescence is one of the fastest growth periods of a person's life. As a result of the physical, psychological, hormonal, cognitive and social transformation changes that occur during this growth period, the body’s nutritional needs, eating habits and food choices fluctuate. The study assessed the food waste and eating behavior among adolescent in Umuahia metropolis. Six objectives were formulated to guide the study. The study employed a descriptive and cross-sectional study design. The target population for this study were adolescent in Umuahia metropolis Abia State. A multi-staged sampling technique was used to select 261 adolescents from Umuahia metropolis. The data for the study were collected with the aid of a structured questionnaire while the anthropometric data were collected using height and weight, measurements. Descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage and mean was used to analyze the socio-demographic characteristics. Food waste and eating behavior of the adolescents while Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between food waste and eating behavior among adolescents. This result from this study revealed most of the adolescents are male (63.6%) and 60.2% ranged between the ages of 16 – 18 years, most of the adolescents in the study area came out from a nuclear family (90.8%) and (72.8%) lived with parents, also (47.5%) eats with family member. Majority of the respondents in the study area had fathers whose major occupation are civil servant, where (26.1%) fathers monthly income was above N 110,000 and (32.2%) mothers are farmers while (55.2%) had a monthly income of N 20,000 – N 50,000. The relationship between adolescent eating behavior and food wastage was found to conform to a priori expectation. This implies that if meals are skipped total food wastage will increase by 0.20%, and if meals are eaten less than usual total food wastage will increase by 0.42%, refusal to eat food at first glance results to a total food wastage of 0.34%. The study therefore concludes that behavior of adolescents in the study area leads to food wastage. Base on the findings, recommendations where made that food industry and their advertising partners should cooperate with other institutions and sectors such as schools and health sectors, to control the types and quantities of products they produce and market.