Evaluation of Dietary Habits and Anthropometric Indices of Administrative Staff in UNTH, Ituku-Ozalla Enugu

Abstract

Anthropometric measurements indirectly indicate present or past nutrition and may be markers of future illhealth. Unhealthy eating habits are among the leading risk factors for many diseases.
Objectives: The study evaluated the anthropometric indices and the dietary habits of administrative staff in the University of Nigeria  Teaching Hospital, Ituku-ozalla, Enugu state.
Materials and Methods: The study design used in this research was cross-sectional design. A multi-stage sampling technique was used  to obtain the representative sample of target population. A total of 230 respondents were identified for the study which was gotten by  15% of the total population with the addition of attrition which is 10%. In the first stage, administrative staffs in University of Nigeria  Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu were purposefully selected as the study location. In the second stage, 15 administrative departments in UNTH were randomly selected by balloting without replacement. In the third stage, 15 administrative staff was randomly selected from each department. A structured, validated questionnaire used to evaluate the demographic characteristics, dietary practices and  anthropometric measures such as weight, height, hip and waist circumferences of the respondents with the use of appropriate  instruments (Camry bathe scale, heightometer, non-stretchable tape) were used in data collection. The data were analyzed with  Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS), version 21.0. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze them while Pearson correlation  was used to determine the relationship between variables. A p-value of less than 0.05 (<0.05) was considered statistically significant.  Results: Most (90.9%) respondents worked between 6-8 hours daily while 49.1% earned between 100,000 - N150,000 monthly. On the  dietary habit, 58.7% skipped meals on a weekly basis. However, 26.1% who skipped meals was because of the busy nature of their work  while 23.9% skipped meals because they did not feel like eating early. Nature of work affected the food choices of 39.6% of the  respondents usually through lack of time to eat (23.9%). On the anthropometric indices according to the BMI ranges, 44.3% had obesity stage 1 while 31.3% were overweight. For waist-hip-ratio, 61.7% were at high risk, 23.5% were at low risk while 14.8 were moderate.  Conclusion: The dietary habits and the prevalence of obesity and overweight among the administrative staff is a pointer to the  inadequacy of meal consumption. Therefore administrative workers should be given proper education in order to curtail the increasing prevalence of obesity and overweight among them.