Date of Award:

8-2026

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Nutrition, Dietetics, and Food Sciences

Committee Chair(s)

Abiodun Atoloye

Committee

Abiodun Atoloye

Committee

Carrie Durward

Committee

Yin Liu

Abstract

Youth remain underserved in nutrition research, policy, and programming despite being an integral part of the food systems. While the nutrition-sensitive agriculture framework has been established, there is limited evidence demonstrating how youth engagement in agriculture can serve as a pathway to improve nutritional outcomes. The study assessed youth agricultural engagement and its association with household dietary diversity, household food insecurity, and nutritional status in southwest Nigeria.

Using a cross-sectional design, data on socio-demographic characteristics, agricultural engagement, dietary diversity, household food insecurity, body mass index, and skin carotenoids were collected from 143 youth aged 15 to 35 from Ekiti, Osun, and Ogun states through an interview-administered structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze participants’ socio-demographic characteristics, and structural equation modeling was used to assess the direct and indirect pathways linking youth agriculture income contribution, household dietary diversity, household food insecurity, and nutritional status.

The results indicated that youth agriculture income contribution was positively significantly associated with BMI and negatively significantly associated with skin carotenoids through the mediating role of dietary diversity and household food insecurity. When controlled for covariates, male and age were significant with BMI, and only male was significant with skin carotenoids.

The study aligns with the established nutrition-agriculture sensitive framework and provides contextual evidence of how agricultural engagement can facilitate positive nutritional outcomes. Future studies can conduct a longitudinal design to capture how youth agriculture engagement dynamics, social and structural factors, facilitate improved nutritional outcomes.

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