ABSTRACT

The study was done to assess the Nutrition Knowledge, dietary habits and prevalence of hypertension among undergraduates in Michael Okara University of Agriculture, Umudike. A multi-stage sampling technique was used for the study. A total number of 433 students participated to the survey. A semi- structured, validated self-administered questionnaire was used to generate data on socio demographic, socio-economic, nutrition knowledge, dietary' habits, and electric blood pressure monitor (omron) was used in measurement of blood pressure. The results obtained from the study showed that 67.1% of the respondents were female,38.4% of the students were between 16-19 years of age,70.6% were single, majority 98.8% were Christians,33.64% of the students were in 2001evel,48.6 of the respondents were resident in the hostel,43.10% of the students earned <N10,000 as monthly allowance,56.63% of the students their source of allowance was from their parents, the nutrition knowledge showed that many (55.02%) of the respondents had poor nutrition knowledge. About 50.7% of students ate thrice or more per day, 45.8% of the undergraduates skipped meals especially breakfast, 48.58% of the students consumed food from the cereals and 29.14% tubers moderately. 65.8% of the student had low nutrient intake of fruits and 25.85% of students also had low nutrients intake of vegetables. Many of the students 65.4% had normal blood pressure, 20.40% of undergraduates had elevated blood pressure while 9.0% and 5.2% had stage 1 and stage 2 hypertension respectively. In conclusion, the association of blood pressure with nutrition knowledge and food consumption revealed that good nutrition knowledge score was associated with lower hypertension but the associations between these variables were not statically significant in this report. This implies that poor nutrition knowledge could results in poor dietary pattern and ultimately increasing blood pressure.