Dietary Diversity and Associated Factors among Adolescent Girls in Rural Community of Doyogena District, Kembata Tembaro Zone, Southern Ethiopia, 2020

Background: Optimal nutrition for adolescent girls is critical for growth, development, and long-term health. Dietary diversity is a crucial component of feeding strategies. In resourcepoor countries, undiversified diets and low-quality monotonous diet feeding habits are frequent. This leads to poor nutritional status, particularly micronutrient deficiencies, which has an impact on adolescent females' current and future lives, as well as their kids. However, data on the magnitude of dietary diversity and associated determinants among adolescent girls in resource-poor settings such as Ethiopia, which include the research area, is sparse. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 603 adolescent girls from randomly selected adolescent girls in Ethiopia using a multistage sampling method. The data were collected through face-to-face interviews by using a pretested structured questionnaire and entered into Epi-data 4.2.0.0 version and exported to SPSS version 20 for analyses. Multicollinearity between independent variables and model goodness fit test was checked. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analysis were used to determine the degree of relationship between independent and dependent variables. At a p-value of less than 0.05, the odds ratio was declared, along with the 95 percent confidence interval and the level of statistical significance. Results: The prevalence of dietary diversity among adolescent girls was 43.8% (95% CI: 39.7%- 48.0%). having secondary and above level of education and primary education, [AOR = 4.0, 95% CI: (1.89-8.32)], being in food secure households [AOR = 6.99, 95% CI: (4.34-11.23)], skipping practice of meals [AOR = 0.54, 95% CI: (0.33-0.88)], currently being on the menstruation [AOR = 0.42, 95% CI: (0.26-0.66)] and having good knowledge about nutrition [AOR = 2.20, 95% CI: (1.32-3.56)] were significantly associated with dietary diversity among adolescent girls. Conclusion: The prevalence of dietary diversity among adolescent girls was low in the study area. Therefore, attention should be given to fathers with no formal education, and efforts should be made to improve household food security, adolescent girls knowledge about nutrition, and minimize skipping of meals to increase adolescent girls dietary diversity and to break the vicious cycles of malnutrition.