Background. Nutrition during adolescence plays an important role in the individual’s life. Socioeconomic status, age, sex, and mothers’ educational level are among the important determinant factors of nutritional status of adolescents. In this study, we test the competing hypotheses about the correlates of nutritional status among Ethiopian adolescents. Methods. We report a total of 2084 adolescents and univariate and multivariable linear regression were used to assess socioeconomic factors associated with underweight and stunting among adolescents. Results. Age, highest grade completed, job, and last attended in community school were positively associated with BMI for Age z-score and highest grade completed, household income, and job were positively associated with Height for Age z-score. However, male gender was negatively associated with BMI for Age z-score and male gender, last attended in community school, abdominal pain, and household size were negatively associated with Height for Age z-score. Conclusion. Age of the adolescents, gender, educational status, employment status, and type of last school attended are associated with underweight; gender, place of residence, household size, household income, educational status, employment status, type of last school attended, and abdominal pain are associated with stunting. The findings reflect socio-economic characteristics are associated with underweight and stunting. 1. Background of the study The world population is believed to have reached over 6.6 billion [1]. Adolescence is a particularly unique period in life because it is a time of intense physical, psychosocial, and cognitive development. Nutrition during adolescence plays an important role in the individual’s life. Increased nutritional needs to adolescents gain up to 50% of their adult weight, more than 20% of their adult height, and 50% of their adult skeletal mass [2]. There are different factors that affect nutritional status of adolescents. Socioeconomic status, age, sex, and mothers’ educational level are among the important determinant factors of nutritional status of adolescents [3–6]. Studies have shown that adolescent women from low economic status households were most affected by malnutrition and the higher the level of education, the lower the proportion of undernourished adolescent women, and rural adolescent women are more likely to suffer from chronic energy deficiency than adolescent women in urban areas. [7, 8]. There are only a handful of studies on adolescent malnutrition in developing countries—they indicate that younger
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