ABSTRACT

Adequate nutrition  and  good  lifestyle are  important determinants of  health in  older persons in  order  to  reduce risks  of  many  degenerative diseases. This  study  was  carried  out  on  older  persons in Etinan Local  Government Area of  Akwa ibom  State  to  assess  their nutritional status and  cardiovascular risk factors. A multi- stage sampling technique was used to select the. 373 older persons (comprising of 167 male and 206 female). Data  on  personal information, Socio-economic , dietary  habits, cardiovascular risk  factors, 24- hour dietary recall, section food frequency questionnaire, and  anthropometric measurements were  obtained  using  well - structured  questionnaire.  Data on  anthropometric measurements were  analyzed  using  WHO  references while  blood  pressure were analyzed using international  business machine- statistical package for  service  solution (IBM- SPSS)  Windows  version  22.0.  Result  from  the study  reveal  that  slightly more  than  half (55.2%) of the older  persons were  female  while  about  44.8% are male. More than half (65.4%) of them are aged between 60-65 years and 30.8% of them had their tertiary education. Some (26.3%) and (22.5%) earned less than N5,000 and  between N5,000-N10,000   monthly  respectively. Some (42.4%) of  the  older persons ate 3 times  a day  while  some of  them  ate  2 times  a day. Slightly above half (55.0%) skipped meals while some (31.9%) and (11.8%) skipped lunch and breakfast respectively. Some (34.9%) of the older persons ate when they were hungry. A few (12.9%) of the older persons smoked daily (7.0%). Majority (81.0%) of the older persons take between 0-3 teaspoons of sugar in hot drinks added to food daily. However, majority (83.9%) of them engaged in physical activity such as walking, washing and running. Result  from  the  study  revealed that  42.9%  of  the  older persons had normal  BMI status, 29.2% were  Overweight, 15.8% were  obese while 7.0%  were  underweight. However, frequency of physical exercise was seen to be significantly related (p-0.000) to the BMI status of the older persons. The more physical exercise they engage, the more normal their BMI. Result further showed that there was a significant relationship (X2 =70.373, P=0.000)   between frequency of smoking and their blood pressure. Those who smoked twice daily (14.7%) had high normal blood pressure. In addition, frequency of fried food consumption was also found to be related (X2=42.191, P=0.0001) to blood pressure. The older persons are advised against intake of fried foods. Smoking and intake of alcohol should also be reduced while the older persons are advised to engage more in physical exercises.