Nutritional-related diseases and management: newspaper education and dissemination

Abstract

Newspapers record events on daily basis. Important events such as health, politics and other happenings, such as births, marriages and death are also recorded. This investigation identifies the newspapers that have information on health tips, these are Punch, The Nation and The Guardian. This study is designed to identify some common nutritional-related diseases and their food remedies in order to create awareness about the importance of healthy eating or dieting. This study does not involve all the information about health in all the Tuesdays and Thursdays newspapers. The papers used were those that met the interest of the researchers on nutritional diseases such as cancer, hypertension, diabetes, eye problems, arthritis and obesity and the problem of diet and nutrition. Data were collected from 20 daily newspapers that were purposively selected from the year 2012 to 2015 for the study. Data compiled were analysed using descriptive statistics and bar graph. The result revealed that the occurrence of newspaper issues on dieting and health had 43.4 percent followed by cancer 20.7 percent and diabetes and eye problems had 13.2 percent, while hypertension and obesity had 2 percent each. The study showed that many people are ignorant of the importance of eating a balanced diet and eating right to prevent nutritional diseases. This is why the newspapers topics or health tips on diet and nutrition had the highest percentage frequency, because of its importance the needed emphasis it requires. Therefore, it is suggested that government, health workers and extension organizations should create awareness and make nutritional education compulsory in schools and higher institutions in Nigeria. This will consequently, reduce the nutritional ignorance of people, the occurrence of nutritional-related diseases and death rate.

Key word: Nutritional; diseases; newspaper; education