Overweight and Undernutrition in the Cases of School-Going Adolescents in Wolaita Sodo Town, Southern Ethiopia: Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: This study aimed to assess the prevalence of malnutrition and associated factors among school adolescents in Wolaita Sodo town, Southern Ethiopia.

Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted from May 18-June 10, 2015. A multistage sampling was used to select a random sample of 690 adolescents from selected schools. Data on sociodemographic information were collected by using an interviewer-administered questionnaire, and anthropometric measurements were made by using a digital Seca scale and height measuring board by trained data collectors. Data were entered into Epi-Data version 3.1 software and exported to SPSS version 20. World Health Organization (WHO) Anthro-plus software was used to analyze anthropometric data. Both binary and multinomial logistic regression analyses were done to identify factors associated with the malnutrition of adolescents.

Result: The overall prevalence of thinness, stunting, and overweight/obesity among school adolescents was 4.7% (95% CI: 3%-6.4%); 5.2% (95% CI: 3.4%-7%); and 5.0% (95% CI: 3.4%-6.7%), respectively. Being male (AOR = 4.07; 95% CI: 2.35-7.02), learning at a government school (AOR = 0.37; 95% CI: 0.20-0.65), mothers with no formal education (AOR = 4.03; 95% CI: 1.82-8.92), owning no cattle (AOR = 4.92; 95% CI: 2.08-11.64), skipping meals (AOR = 1.70; 95% CI: 1.05-2.74), and illness in 2 weeks prior to survey (AOR = 2.67; 95% CI: 1.49-4.78) were significantly associated with thinness. However, males, students who had their house, and no cattle were more likely to develop overweight/obesity. Maternal education of secondary school (AOR = 0.214; 95% CI: 0.054-0.846) was significantly associated with the stunting.

Conclusion: The study showed the coexistence of undernutrition and overnutrition among school adolescents in the study area. There needs to implement evidence-based school nutrition education and health policies and programs to improve nutritional status of adolescents and timely taking action to limit obesity-related health problems.

Figure 1

Distribution of nutritional status by sex of respondents among school-going adolescents in primary, secondary, and preparatory school of Wolaita Sodo town, May 2015.