¹Adeyele, Tolulope Kolade,²Adeyele, Victoria Olubola,³ Akinbisoye, Anthonia Folake

¹,²,³Bamidele Olumilua University of Education, Science and Technology Ikere-Ekiti

The study examined the food choice and nutritional intake of children and adolescents. Specifically, it investigated the healthiness, convenience, and sensation of the food intake of the participants’ sex and age, it also examines the choice of carbohydrate, protein, and vitamin food of the participants. Using survey research design, data were randomly collected from 254 participants of 9-11 years (late childhood) and 12-18 years (adolescent). A research instrument that was adequately validated was used for data collection. The results showed that male participants (58.3%) eat healthy food than female (41.7%) participants, convenience (easy to prepare) and sensation (look, taste and smell) do not affect the nutritional intake of older children and adolescents. Moreover, the result revealed that gender does not contribute significantly to the food choice of children and adolescents, regardless of the age of the participants there is a high rate of consumption of carbohydrate food. The study concludes that the adverse effects of too much carbohydrate food should be taken into consideration, children and adolescents should be encouraged to eat all types of food in their diet except in the case of allergy.

Food choice, Nutritional Intake, Children, Adolescents

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VOLUME 04 ISSUE 06 JUNE 2021