Securing the Future of Nigerian Adolescents through Nutrition: A <i>Position Paper of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria (NSN)</I>

Abstract

Adolescence (the period from 10 – 19 years of age) is a critical second window of opportunity of intervention for the improvement of current, future, and intergenerational nutritional health. Though adolescents have increased nutritional requirement and constitute about 21% (>41m) of Nigerian population, they remain a largely neglected, difficult-to-measure and hard-to-reach population and have
not been prioritized for nutrition intervention. Consequently, limited information is available on trends in adolescents nutrition in Nigeria, while anecdotal evidence shows that adolescent malnutrition are common. Available data has indicated the co-existence of both undenutrition and overnutrition among Nigerian adolescents. Greater investment in advancing adolescent nutrition is critical to promoting their health and development which has lifelong implications in order to secure them and their future families, communities and nation at large. In Nigeria, targeted adolescent nutrition programmes, led by either
public or private sector are rare, though few private sector and government driven interventions have some adolescent nutrition components. The major challenges affecting adolescent nutrition persist, including policy gaps, poor coordination and delivery platforms, knowledge and research gaps, and high rates of adolescent pregnancy. These challenges have limited the prioritization of adolescent nutrition inclusion in national development agenda resulting in the observed poor nutritional situation of the adolescents. The Nutrition Society of Nigeria calls for urgent actions by government, development partners, private sectors and other stakeholders to bridge the identified policy and data gaps, enhance coordination and increase delivery platforms to reach adolescents with a minimum package of nutrition interventions giving special consideration for nutritional needs of pregnant adolescent mothers.