A Study on the impact of dietary diversity and hygiene practice on nutritional status of adolescents (age group 10-19) in rural area, Bangladesh: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Adolescent boys and girls belong to the extremely important segment of our society. Nutritional deficiency in this period causes many life time consequences like underweight, stunting, anemia, weakness, vulnerable to diseases or infections etc. The situation gets worse in case of girls as they are the future mothers. The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of dietary diversity and hygiene practice on the nutritional status of the adolescents. This study was carried out among adolescents (age group 10-19 years) in a selected rural area of Bangladesh. A community based, descriptive cross sectional survey was conducted and 24 hour recall method was used to determine the dietary diversity score. 345 students were selected randomly for this study. Based on this assessment, 63.48% of the participants were under weight where 38.84% were adolescent girls and 24.64% were boys. According to MUAC measurement the prevalence of MAM participants were 19.47% in age group between 10 to 14 years. Again in age group between 15 to 19 yrs there were 5.04% SAM and 34.45% MAM participants. Majority percent of the participants, around 29.86% had IDD Score 8. And only 0.58% participants scored 13 in IDDS scale given by FAO (2013). Though 81.15% participants had normal blood glucose level, but still 9.57% had hypoglycemia and 4.06% had severe hypoglycemia and 5.22% had high blood glucose level. 96.28% participants collect their drinking water while 75.65% from pod for cooking purpose. But only 14.78 % and 13.33% participants filter their drinking and cooking water respectively. Still now 57.1% had pit sanitary system and only 1.45% had piped sewer system facility. Hand washing practice is also poor among adolescent, almost 35.65% never wash hands before eating, 24.93% after using toilets and 55.94% before preparing food.