Abstract
Nutritional status is globally recognized as the means of
determining the body’s nutritional health. Several research findings
had shown that there is an increasing rate of malnutrition as well as
obesity across the globe. The practice of vegetarianism is recognized
as one of the mechanism through which good nutritional status could
be maintained. As nutritional health of adolescents and young adults
most of whom are at the age of undergraduate studies has been
acknowledged as being very important for supporting their growing
bodies as well as prevent future health problems; many of them are
reported to be engaging in habits that affect their nutritional health.
The study therefore investigated the nutritional status of lacto-ovo
vegetarian young adults of Babcock University, Ogun State, Nigeria.
The study carried at Babcock University, Ilishan Remo Ogun State,
Nigeria utilized a sample of 210 students. Samples of each cooked food
served to the students were collected for each meal served during the
whole week. Nutritional status of the respondents and the data from
anthropometry measurements indicates that 67.59% were normal,
18.52% over-weight, 11.11% obese and 2.77% were underweight.
Majority (70.41%) of the female respondents was Normal, 18.37% were
overweight, and 9.18% were obese while 2.04% were underweight.
From the overall nutritional status of the respondents based on Body
Mass Index (BMI), majority (68.93%) of the respondents were normal,
18.45% were overweight and 10.19% of the respondents were obese
while 2.43% were underweight. percentage of respondents that were
below or above the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI). For Energy,
only 2% of the respondents were above the RDI, 97.1% were above
protein RDI, 3% were above Iron RDI while the entire respondents
were below the RDI for Calcium and Zinc.
