ABSTRACT

This study was designed to assess food security, diet quality and anthropometric status of the clinical healthcare professionals in Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia. The study adopted cross-sectional and descriptive survey. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select a total of 315 clinical healthcare professionals. Data on socio demographic characteristics of the clinical healthcare professionals, food security status and diet quality status were collected using a structured and validated questionnaire while Anthropometric status of the respondents which was accessed using standard procedure values were compared to reference standard. Hip and waist circumference of the respondents were measured using non-stretchable tape. The IBM SPSS version 25.0 computer programme was used to analyze the data. Data obtained were described using frequency and percentage. Correlation was used to analyze the relationship between food security, diet quality and anthropometric status of the respondents. Significance relationship was judged at p≤0.05. Result revealed that 53.5% of the respondents in this study were between 20-29 years old and majorities (58.0%) were single. More than half of the respondents (61.8%) were male. The respondents who were food secured were (52.2%), with 39.5% being mildly food insecure, 7.0%, moderately food insecure and 1.3% was severely food insecure. Their diet quality level showed that food groups consumed daily were cereals, roots and tubers at (90.4%), unprocessed red meat (85.4%), dark green leafy vegetables (45.9%), other vegetables (82.8%) and soft drinks at (55.4%). The results of the anthropometric status of the respondents revealed that overweight were (48.4%) respectively while (36.3%) were normal and (13.4%) were obese. The waist hip ratio of the respondents showed that (65.6%) were safe while (33.1%) were at risk. The result of the relationship between food security, diet quality and anthropometric status of the respondents revealed that significant relationship (p ≤ 0.05) exists between WHR and NCD-risk. This implies that there is an inverse correlation. Majority of the respondents were between 20-29 years old. More than half of the respondents were males. Overweight among the respondents was high. Thus Healthcare professionals should be engaged in physical activities and employing more of the Dietitians in the hospital for proper cancelling and increasing the awareness of healthy eating behavior as well as appropriate routine measures to monitor the trend of body weight towards overweight/ obesity among the healthcare professionals.