Enhancing adolescent nutritional behaviour through school food club interventions

Background: There is a growing concern over the rising prevalence of malnutrition among adolescents in Africa. This issue is largely attributed to the decline in dietary quality during this crucial stage, which compromises the ability to meet nutritional needs and increases vulnerability to various illnesses and nutrition-related diseases. Understanding the factors that can enhance adolescent nutritional behavior is essential to addressing this public health challenge.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the impact of adopting School Food Clubs (SFC) on the nutritional behavior (NB) of adolescents in private secondary schools in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.

Method: With a quasi-experimental design, two Local Government Areas (LGAs) were randomly assigned as the Intervention Group (IG; Ibadan South West) and Comparison Group (CG; Ibadan North). Three private secondary schools with existing SFCs were randomly selected from each group. A total of 162 adolescents (IG=85, CG=77) interested in SFC were recruited. Quantitative assessments were performed using a semi-structured questionnaire at baseline and post-intervention.

Result: Knowledge, attitude, self-efficacy, and practice scores significantly increased in the IG post-intervention compared to the CG. The SFC adoption positively influenced knowledge (21.7±3.1), attitude (22.3±2.8), self-efficacy (24.4±3.1), and practice (22.2±5.0) scores at the 3-month follow-up. The study revealed consistent improvements across these variables, indicating a significant positive relationship between SFC adoption and NB promotion.

Conclusion: The School Food Club demonstrated effectiveness in promoting the nutritional behavior of adolescents in Ibadan. The study suggests that SFCs have the potential for sustainable positive nutritional behavior changes among the target population and recommends their encouragement in other schools. This research contributes valuable insights into addressing the increasing prevalence of malnutrition among adolescents, emphasizing the need for interventions that focus on holistic nutritional behavior improvements through innovative and sustainable platforms like SFCs