Nutritional Status and Associated Risk Factors Among Adolescent Girls in Agarfa High School, Bale Zone, Oromia Region, South East Ethiopia

Adolescent have typically been considered as low risk for poor health and often receive few health care resource and attention. However, their approach ignores the fact that many health problems later in life can be improved by adopting health life style habits in adolescents. There is a shortage of studies about nutritional status and associated factors among adolescent girls. The objective of this study was to asses nutritional status of adolescent girls and associated factors in Agarfa high school, Bale zone, Oromia Region, south Eastern Ethiopia. Institutional based cross sectional study was conducted to assess nutritional status of and associated factors in adolescent. The sample size was calculated based on the single proportion formula using the prevalence of malnutrition in adolescents 27%, α=5% and degree of margin of error 5%. The final sample size was 212 adolescent girls. The study employed systematic sampling technique to select adolescents and the data were collected by using structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics was used for reporting the different characteristics while chi square test will be employed to determine factors associated with nutritional status. In this study it can be concluded that the prevalence of underweight and overweight is high. This indicates the double burden of malnutrition among adolescent girls in this area. Dietary factors such as meal frequency, meal skipping and dietary diversity were the associated factor for nutritional status of adolescent girls. Appropriate nutrition education intervention should designed to improve the nutritional status of adolescents girls.