ABSTRACT

The formal work settings may predispose an individual to dietary and lifestyle 3 iik aS a verse consequence on their nutritional status and overall we emg. is study was designed to determined the food security status, dietary prac ices an ant . opometric status of academic junior staff in Michael Okpara mversity o griculture Umudike, Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive cioss sectional design, multi-stage sampling technique was used to select 295 junior academics from the various colleges/ departments in the aformation institution. This study, used a structured questionnaire to generate information on the respondents socio demographic characteristics, dietary habits, food security and anthiopometric characteristics. Standard procedures/instruments were used and values were compared to reference standards. Descriptive and Inferential statistics (Pearson s correlation) was done using IBM SPSS Version 25. Results on sociodemographic characteristics revealed a preponderance of female (51.5%), young adults (29-39 -62.5). They were all educated up to tertiary education level (100.0%) and a good number of them have alternative income streams (90.9%). The respondents have worked for 4-6 years (46.8%) or less (51.2%) and have about 1- 3 (59.7%) household members. The usual daily meal intake frequency was two (36.9%) to three times (49.2%) daily. Breakfast (24.4%) and lunch (14.6%) meals were mainly skipped. Meat pie (19.0%), biscuits (15.3%), and groundnuts (16.6%) were the commonly consumed snacks. Close to half (46.8%) of the respondents consumed snacks at least once every day. A good number of them consume vegetables regularly (34.9%) while regular fruit intake was very low (5.8%). A significant proportion (43.7%) of the respondents consume 1-3 (31.4%) or more (44.0%) bottles of alcohol. Dietary diversity score of 10.42 + 2.42 is indicative of the attainment of a minimum dietary diversity. Almost half (47.5%) of the respondents experienced severe food insecurity, 30.8% and 11.9% expeiienced moderate and mild food insecurity respectively while a little below one-tenth weie food secured. Obesity was found in one-tenth (10.6%) of the respondents, 39.0% and 48 1% were normal and overweight respectively. Most (60.3%) of them had high waist hip ratio. A significant (p<0.05) association was observed between these variables food security and weekly fruit intake, dietary diversity and snack intake, and body mass index vegetable. Nutrition education and strengthening work place food environment will help the respondents make informed choices.