The Prevalence of Underweight and Overweight and the Influential Factors in the Adolescent Students in Finote Selam Town in Amhara Region, Ethiopia

Introduction: Adolescence is the transition from childhood to adulthood, which occurs within the age range of 10-19 years. The present study aimed to assess the nutritional status and influential factors in the adolescent students of Finote Selam town in Ethiopia in 2018. Methods: This school-based, cross-sectional study was conducted on 437 adolescent students, who were selected via stratified simple random sampling. Data analysis was performed in the EPI Info version 7 and SPSS version 20 using binary logistic regression to identify the influential factors in the underweight students. In addition, crude and adjusted odds ratios with 95% significance level were used to measure the strength of the associations, and statistical significance was considered at the P-value of less than 0.05. Results: The total prevalence of underweight, normal weight, and overweight in the adolescent students in Finote Selam town was 46.2%, 51.0%, and 2.7%, respectively. Significant associations were observed between underweight and the male gender, living in rural areas, having illiterate fathers and uneducated mothers, and the family size of larger than or equal to five (P 0.05). Conclusion: According to the results, underweight was the most prevalent issue in the study area. The most influential factors in this regard were gender, place of residence, parental education level, family size, and occupation status of the father. Therefore, the impact of these factors should be further investigated to develop strategies for the reduction of malnutrition in Finote Selam town.