ABSTRACT

Poor or unbalanced diets as in the case of excessive eating and under nutrition are risk factors for several chronic diseases. Poor food intake reduces the level of nutrients in the body thereby exposing the body to nutrition related problems. This study was carried out to assess nutritional and health status of the older persons in Ngwo, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State. Questionnaires were administered to 238 randomly selected older persons aged 60 years and above, to get information on their background, socio-economic data, dietary pattern and geriatric health which comprised of general health, functional ability (ADL and IADL) and nutrition health check list. Anthropometric indices of weight, height, calf circumference, waist circumference, hip circumference and MUAC were collected and stratified using their different standards. Data were analyzed with the computer programme, Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) for windows version 21 using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient and analysis of variance and significant difference judged at p<0.05. The result showed that more than half (58.4%) of the respondents were within the age of 60-69 years. About 33.2% sourced their income from their children and 42.9% earned between N18,000-N36,000 a month. Most (68.1%) skipped meals while 57.4% skipped breakfast, 23.1% ate heaviest at dinner. About 39.9% consumed pastries/snacks twice a week while 23.5% consumed it four times. Some (49.2%) preferred garri and soup, 25.2% took fruits five times a week. Some (40.3%) consumed beer. Only 31.5% consumed snuff, out of which 64% took it daily. BMI classification showed that 34.5% were overweight, 26.1% were obese, 1.7% underweight, and 56% and 55.9% were at risk of cardiovascular disease from their waist circumference and waist hip ratio classification respectively. About 37.4% and 31.9% described their health to be good and very good. Some (49.6%) had experienced moderate body pain in the past 4 weeks. According to their activities of daily living, 92.4% were very independent. In their instrumental activities of daily living, only 10.1% and 17.6% were unable and needed assistance in performing daily activities. From their nutritional health checklist, most of them (62.6%) were at high nutritional risk while 25.2% were moderately at risk.