Meal pattern and soft drink consumption among in-school adolescents in Benin-city,Edo state,nigeria

Meal pattern and soft drink consumption among in-school adolescents in benin city,edo state,nigeria. healthy meal pattern is very important in t he maintenance of the highest level of physical,mental and social well-beingof an individual,more so during the adolescence period which is characterized by dramatic physical,psychological and cognitive development. this study aimed to determine the pattern of meal consumption among in-school adolescents in benin-city,nigeria. this descriptive,cross sectional study was carried out between january - june 2013 among in-school adolescents inbenin-city,edostate,nigeria.theparticipants were selected using amulti-stage samplingmethod.the tool for data collection was a pre-tested,structured,interviewer-administered questionnaire.data wasanalyzedusingibmspss20.0andsignificant levelwas setatpless than 0.05. atotal of 797 in-school adolescents with mean age of 15.4 ± 3.6 years participated in the study. the highest proportion of them were 14-15 years (66.9%) and males (51.8%). majority of the respondents (71.6%) ate three times a day. dinner was the meal eaten most often by the highest proportion of them (95.5%),followed by lunch (90.2%) and breakfast (85.9%). eightyeight percent of them skipped meals and this was significantly higher among the females (90.7%) than the males (86.0%),p = 0.041 and those in the m d-adolescent (14-15 years) age group (92.3%),p < 0.001. the reasonsgiven for skipping meals included staying for after-school activities (45.1%),time constraint in the morning (43.4%),not being hungry (25.2%) and waking up late (11.5%). six hundred and ninety-three (87.0%) of them were involved in snacking and this pattern was significantly higher among the male adolescents (p = 0.037),those in the highest social economic class (p = 0.003) and among those in the senior class (p < 0.001). eighty-seven percent of the respondents had consumed soft drinks on a daily basis in the past one week preceding the survey. conclusion: the study revealed that meal skipping,snacking and soft drink consumption were common among this adolescent population. public enlightenment campaign and school food policies that promote healthy eating habits are recommended. © cms uniben jmbr 2015.