Micronutrient Intakes and the Health Implications Among Displaced Adolescents in Kogi State

Abstract

The study examined micronutrient intakes and the health implications among adolescents in Edo State. There were three specific objectives and hypotheses. T his study adopted a survey design. The population of the study comprised all the 725 adolescents who were displaced and settled in the IDP camps in Kogi State. The simple random sampling technique was used to select 100 adolescents (50 boys and 50 girls). The instrument for this study was a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher titled, “Micronutrient Intake Questionnaire (MIQ) which had a category of four point rating scale ranging from Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (D), and Strongly Disagree (SD). The mean and standard deviation were used to analyze the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 17. Some of the findings are that: the adolescentshad low awareness on how if vitamins are vital for energy and immune functions; fruits and vegetables are rich in vitamins; they consumed less meat and fish; and took inadequate milk and green vegetables; while ways to promote access to nutrients include providing adequate nutrition education for parents; economic empowerment for parents. Among the recommendations are that families should be empowered by government and relevant agencies for economic self-reliance in order to be economically stable to provide their children with essential micronutrients, and nutrition education should be made available to parents and other caregivers responsible for adolescent and other children’s feeding.