ABSTRACT

The study investigated the lifestyle pattern and anthropometric status of adolescent day girl students in two public secondary school in Umuahia North Local Government Area, Abia State. The specific objectives of the study were to determine the socioeconomic characteristics of the adolescent girls, assess their lifestyle pattern, the anthropometric status of the respondents using body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference and wait-hip ratio and determine the relationship between the lifestyle pattern and the anthropometric status of the respondents. /A cross-sectional study design was used in the study. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total or 211 respondents which were all adolescent day girl students in two public secondary school in Umuahia North Local Government Area. Data on the socio-economic data. socio-demographic data, food habits of the respondents. tile style of the respondents, food frequency questionnaire and anthropometric indices- of the respondents were collected using a structured questionnaire. Data collected from the study was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 22.0 (SPSS). Significance relationship was judged at p <0.05The result revealed that (83.5%) skipped meal once or twice a day, (33.3%) skipped lunch, (26.0%) skipped dinner, while the least skipped meal was breakfast (6.8%), and the reason for meal skipping by most (30.5%) was due to religious fasting. The snacking habit of the respondent showed that (72.6%) do cat snacks and the reason for snacking by most (27.9%) was because they did not meet up with preparing their meals. Length of sleep of the adolescents in the area of study showed that majority get between 8-10 hours of sleep (31.6% and 42%), while I 0.4% sleep above 12 hours. The prevalence of obesity using WI IO technique was (53.7%). Based on the findings, the study recommended that adolescents should be educated on healthy feeding practices as this will contribute to improved adolescent health. nutrition education should be treated as a core subject from nursery to secondary school to keep them inundated on the importance of nutrition. adult education should be moved higher in the academic ladder to curb illiteracy and ignorance which is the harbinger of poverty. The study finally recommended further research on determinants of feeding practices.