Nutrition Knowledge and Dietary Practices among Women of Reproductive Age in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State

Abstract Background Nutrition is a crucial component in health and development. According to World Health Organization (WHO), better nutrition is associated to improved infant, child and maternal health, a stronger immune system, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases and durability. Despite overall awareness level of pregnant mothers on nutrition before and during pregnancy, the practices related to proper nutrition and diversified nutrition during pregnancy were found to be poor. Objective The study was designed to assess nutrition knowledge, determine their practice towards their nutritional knowledge, and the association of socio-economic and demographic characteristics on the nutrition knowledge among women of reproductive age in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. Methodology A cross-sectional study was conducted on 436 undergraduate women of reproductive age between the ages of 15-49 in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia State. The undergraduate women of reproductive age were selected using simple random sampling. Information from students were collected using questionnaire. The data was analyzed using SPSS. Correlation was used to determine the association of socio-economic and demographic characteristics and nutrition knowledge. Results The finding outcomes revealed that 78.2% of respondents had tertiary education, 93.3% of the respondents correctly identified that women should make adequate plans for pregnancy while 84.6% were aware of anemia and malnutrition in pregnancy. Also, 84.2% of respondents had adequate nutrition knowledge about pregnancy, and 93.6% didn’t smoke or drink alcohol during pregnancy. However, very few 6.4% smoked/drank alcohol during pregnancy. The study also revealed a significant correlation between level of education of the women and their Nutrition Knowledge. Conclusion The results from the study show that majority of the respondents had knowledge on adequate nutrition, however this did not translate to a good dietary practice for about half of the respondents. The result from the study also revealed majority of the respondents were not conversant with good sources of iron rich foods and also a fallacy on unripe plantain being a good source of iron.