ABSTRACT

The role of good nutrition in ensuring good quality of life among health care professionals cannot be over-emphasized. Good nutrition, in addition to ensuring health promotion and disease prevention, it improves workers’ performance and productivity and it is an antidote against nutritional related health problems such as eating disorders, obesity, high blood pressure, and cancer. This study aims to determine the dietary patterns, other lifestyles and anthropometric status of nurses in Federal Medical Centre, Owo, Ondo state and general hospital, Owo. It was descriptive cross-sectional study which involved 283 nurses who were randomly selected. Information on socio-demographic characteristics and lifestyle history of the respondents was obtained using a semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire. Obesity was assessed using Body mass index (BMI), Waist –Hip Ratio (WHR) and Waist Circumference (WC), Waist-Height ratio (WHTR) and bioelectrical impedance analysis. Data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 to find descriptive statistics and association of the variables through chi-square. Level of statistical significance was set at (p <0.05). The mean age of the respondents was 36.72 ±9.47years. More than half (64.3%) of them were within the age of 30-49 years. More (68%) female nurses participated in the study than male nurses (32%). Only (7.1%) of the respondents drink alcohol, 2.5% smoke cigarette, 65% did not engage in physical exercise. Large number (81.3%) of the respondents always adds vegetables to their diet and 83.3% took fruit regularly. About 21.3% and 47.7% eat 4times and 3times respectively. 22.5% skipped meal of which 9.6% skipped breakfast while 19.1% were snacking. The mean heights of the female participants were shorter than the male counterpart 1.6254+0.0646 vs.1.65+0.0673 respectively. Although there was no significant difference between the height of the participants at (p<0.05), similarly with their weight and BMI (67.854+10.628 vs 66.88+11.079 and 25.778+4.350 vs. 24.50+3.909), but a significant difference was observed in their waist circumference. Female participants have more visceral fat than their male counterpart (p<0.05).  Prevalence of Overweight/Obesity as determined by abnormal values for BMI, WC and WHR were 48.9%, 31.1%, and 43.1% respectively. Prevalence of chronic diseases was 18.4% of which 8.4% where hypertensive. Significant difference was found in age and marital status across the gender (p<0.05). This study observed prevalence obesity and central obesity among the nurses in the Hospitals.