Nutritional Status of Lacto-ovo Vegetarian Young Adults of Babcock University in Ogun State

Abstract

Nutritional status is globally recognized as the means of determining the body's nutritional health. Several research findings had shown that there is an increasing rate of malnutrition as well as obesity across the globe. The practice of vegetarianism is recognized as one of the mechanism through which good nutritional status could be maintained. As nutritional health of adolescents and young adults most of whom are at the age of undergraduate studies has been acknowledged as being very important for supporting their growing bodies as well as prevent future health problems; many of them are reported to be engaging in habits that affect their nutritional health. The study therefore investigated the nutritional status of lacto-ovo vegetarian young adults of Babcock University, Ogun State, Nigeria. The study carried at Babcock University, Ilishan Remo Ogun State, Nigeria utilized a sample of 210 students. Samples of each cooked food served to the students were collected for each meal served during the whole week. Nutritional status of the respondents and the data from anthropometry measurements indicates that 67.59% were normal, 18.52% overweight , 11.11% obese and 2.77% were underweight. Majority (70.41%) of the female respondents was Normal, 18.37% were overweight, and 9.18% were obese while 2.04% were underweight. From the overall nutritional status of the respondents based on Body Mass Index (BMI), majority (68.93%) of the respondents were normal, 18.45% were overweight and 10.19% of the respondents were obese while 2.43% were underweight. percentage of respondents that were below or above the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI). For Energy, only 2% of the respondents were above the RDI, 97.1% were above protein RDI, 3% were above Iron RDI while the entire respondents were below the RDI for Calcium and Zinc.