ABSTRACT

Food related behaviours and other lifestyle practices are important determinants of health across all ages, but especially of food security status in older persons (60 years and above). Therefore the study was designed to assess what food related behaviours exist among older persons in Ukwa-East L.G.A of Abia State and to determine how they affect their food security status. A total of 398 respondents were purposively selected. A well structured questionnaire was used to determine their personal and socioeconomic characteristics, food related behaviours, dietary habits, food security status, 24-hour dietary recall, and food frequency, all of which were analyzed statistically with frequencies and percentages and chi-square tests using Statistical Product for Service Solution (SPSS v23). Results showed that (65.1%) of the respondents were females, occupational status of respondents reveal that 22.1% are traders, 23.4% retired civil servants, 24.6% artisans, 25.1% farmers, and 4.8% have other occupations, including fishing. Only a few have secondary (15.8%) and tertiary education (12.8%), others have just primary education (44.7%) or no formal education (26.6%) at all. Most of the older persons report to be Christians (96.7%). Most households were of the 5-7 (30.2) and 8-10 size ranges (33.9%) about 42.0% of which, have wives responsible for upkeep. Older married persons were 42.2% and 34.7% are widowed. Most of the older persons (54.5%) have their monthly incomes as less than N18.000, while about 71.1% spend less than N5,000 on food weekly. The study also revealed food related behaviours such as frequent food shortages (74.9%), lack of meal planning (80.1%), non-consideration of healthy foods in making food choices (64.2%) among the older persons. Results also showed that 50.8% of the older persons often skipped meals, mostly due to lack of appetite (56.0%) and 82.9% lacked scheduled meal times. The most preferred food group was starchy roots and tubers (51.0%) and the most preferred food preparation method was boiling (55.5%). Most older persons reported appetite loss during stress or bad mood (79.9%), most do not like eating (42.5%) or skip meals (44.5%) when alone, however, most reported to eat more (58.8%) when with family members showing the psychological aspects of food intake. Results also shows significant association between food related behaviours and age range (p<0.05), educational attainment, occupation, household size, household upkeep, marital status, monthly income and money spent on food weekly. However, sex and religion show no significant relationship with food related behavior (p>0.05). All of this showed that the food-related behaviours adopted by the older persons in these rural communities adversely affected their dietary patterns and in turn their food security status, as there is also significant relationship between food related behaviours and food security status of the older persons as results of the study show (p<0.05). Based on these findings, it is therefore necessary that Extensive nutrition education programmes should be planned and carried out by nutrition and health workers for older persons in Ukwa-East L.G.A, to enable them achieve all the above listed recommendations. Also, the technical and financial support of the government and related organisations is required to effectively plan, execute and especially monitor and evaluate the recommended intervention.