Household Food Insecurity, Coping Strategies and Adolescent Girls’ Dietary Diversity Status in Hossana Town, Ethiopia.

Abstract

Background: Adolescents (10-19 years) represent 20 % of the world’s population. In Ethiopia they account for 20-26% of the general population. With adequate dietary diversity, this period is a window of opportunity to break intergenerational cycle of malnutrition. However, there is scarcity of data on the status of dietary diversity in this segments of the population. Methods: A community based cross sectional study design was employed from May 21-June 20, 2019. Cluster sampling technique was used to collect data from 451 households with adolescent girls. Data was entered in to Epi-Data version 3.1 then exported to SPSS version 23 for analysis. Descriptive and logistic regression analysis were performed. Adjusted Odd Ratios (AOR), along with corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI) were used and the level of statistical significance was declared at a p-value of <0.05. Results: A total of 434 households with adolescent girls were involved in the study. We found that 41.7% of households were food insecure, only 57.8%, (C.I.53.5-62.2) of adolescent girls consumed diversified diet, with the mean dietary diversity score of 5.38 (SD=1.75). After adjusting for others, occupational status of the adolescents’ father, (AOR= 0.56, 95% C.I. 0.32-0.99 and AOR=0.26, 95% C.I. 0.17-0.47), exposure to televised media (AOR=3.36, 95% C.I. =1.55-7. 3) and household food security status (AOR=5.09, 95% C.I. =3.2-8.08) were significant predictors of dietary diversity among adolescent girls. Conclusion: Significant portion of households were food insecure; practicing ranges of coping strategies which further compromised dietary diversity of adolescent girls. Poor dietary diversity adversely affects micronutrient reserves of to-be a-mother girls; the vicious cycles of malnutrition continues its far fetching effect. Given that adolescence is the second period in life with rapid growth and development, improving dietary status of this sensitive segments of the population are to be an agenda of all concerned bodies.

Prevalence of Food Insecurity and Associated Factors Among Households in Waliso Town, Oromia, Ethiopia

“…However, it was higher than the ndings of studies conducted in India(6), Nigeria`s Ibadan metropolis (29), Ethiopia, Hosanna town (9), and Woliata Sodo town (23). This high prevalence might be attributed to the current high food price in ation, implications of security problems in different parts of the country, and the war in northern parts which hinders farming activity.…”

“…In 2015, a National level longitudinal study revealed that nearly 1 in 5(18.6%) of smalltown households and 1 in 7 (13.6%) of large-town households were uncertain about having food for the family all over the year(8). And the other study in Hosanna town revealed that 41.7% of households or 2 in 3 were food insecure (9).…”

Food insufficiency and its associated factors: Experiences of in-school adolescents in Sagamu Township, southwest Nigeria

“…As adolescents go about their day-to-day business in environments where they live, study and play, food insecurity remains a challenge they continually face (Sholeye et al, 2021). Adolescence is a critical period of life characterized by: rapid physical and psychological growth spurts; development of intellectual cognition and psychological capacity; and a chance to interrupt the cycle of trans-generational malnutrition and other nutritional problems (Bancha et al, 2020;Dewi et al, 2020). Food insecurity among adolescents has been documented to be associated with: malnutrition, poor health outcomes, low educational attainment, bullying, somatic symptoms such as headaches, tiredness and malaise, mental health problems including stress and suicidal ideations, sexual risk-taking, transactional sex and increased HIV prevalence (Wolde et al, 2015;Drammeh et al, 2019;Dewi et al, 2020;Seidu et al, 2020;Onono et al, 2021).…”