Nutritional Status and Dietary Diversity among Adolescent Girls in Rohingya Refugee Camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

Background: Adolescent girls, constituting approximately 10% of the entire populace. These girls require special care as they bear significant relevance to the health and shape of the well-being of present and future generations. Design and Methods: This cross-sectional study was aimed at evaluating the nutritional status and dietary diversity among adolescent girls (10-19 years) of a particular Rohingya camp in Cox’s Bazar. A pretested, semi-structured questionnaire was implemented to assemble information regarding anthropometric measurements, diversity of diets, and sociodemographic traits. An assessment of nutritional status concerning individual dietary diversity was also done. Result: The socio-demographic data show that most of the participants are in middle adolescence, from a lower-middle or middle-class background. Individual dietary diversity reflects that nearly half of the adolescent girls have medium dietary diversity, and another 33.4% have low, showing a general need to improve access to a wider variety of nutritious food. The nutritional status, as indicated by BAZ, 15.6% either severely or moderately thin while 8.7% of the participants are overweight. As indicated by the HAZ, 11% of the adolescent girls are severely stunted, while 24.7% are mildly to moderately stunted; the majority, 55.3%, have a normal height. There were positive relations between nutritional status and individual dietary diversity of the adolescent girls (correlation coefficient of 0.128). Conclusion: This will provide substantial insights to support a comprehensive overview of the condition and formulation of appropriate dietary interventions and health education programs for adolescent girls of this endangered segment of inhabitants transported to Rohingya camps.