ABSTRACT

 The study aimed at assesing the assessment of diet quality, socio-economic factors and anthropometric status of lactating mothers in some selected primary health centers in Owerri. The method of the study used a cross-sectional design. Multi-stage sampling techniques was used to select 284 participants used for the study. A well-structured and validated questionnaire was used to collect information on the socio-economic characteristics, dietary diversity, minimum dietary diversity. Anthropometric assessment was carried out using standard procedures.The anthropometric characteristics of the participants was taken by the use of a measuring tape for the height and a digital weighing scale for the weight. Statistical package for social sciences IBM (SPSS) software version 23.0 was used to analyze the collected data. Data was analyzed using a descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviation. Pearson correlation was used to analyze the relationship between variables. A P-value of less than 0.5 was accepted as a statistical significance. Only 0.4% of the respondents were between the ages of 15-19 years, 89. I% were between 25-49 years and 10.6% were between 20-24 years. Majority (82.0%) were married, just (9.5%) were single and 2.1 % were widowed. Vast majority (90.8%) of the participants were Christians, 6.7% were Islams and 2.4% were pagans. Majority (85.9%) were Igbos, 6.3% were Hausa and 5.6% were Yoruba. More than half (73.9%) had a tertiary education, 3.9% had no formal education and 19.0% had secondary school education. Some (36.3%) were business women, 30.3% were civil servants and 14.1% were not employed. Some (39. l %) earned below the minimum wage while 21.1 % earned between N 30,000-4 40,000 and only 15.1% earned N 71,000 and above. Only 13.7% consumed dark green vegetables, 33. 1% consumed milk and milk products and 28.5% consumed grains, white root and plantain. Majority (87.3%) had less than 12. 7% required MDD. Only 2.8% were underweight, 32.4% were overweight, 16.9% were obese and less than half (47.9%) had a normal body weight. Waist circumference was 81.29 ± 22.27 and Hip circumference was 99.80 ± 23.35 P-value of (r = 0.175) There was a negative relationship between Body Mass Index and income value, while (r = 0.157) There was also a negative relationship between minimum dietary diversity and Body Mass Index and there was a positive significant relationship between Body Mass Index and waist-hip ratio (r = 0.539)