Dietary diversity and nutritional status of street food consumers in Oyo, south western Nigeria

Abstract

Street food is an affordable and acceptable source of dietary intake remarkable for its high consumption in developing countries. The aim of this study was to assess the dietary diversity and nutritional status of street food consumers in Oyo, a Nigerian urban town. The study was cross-sectional in design. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on the socio-economic characteristics, consumption of street food and a single 24hr dietary recall from 385 street food consumers in Oyo town of Oyo State. The nutritional status of the respondents was assessed with the use of anthropometric indices-weight (kg) and height (m) to estimate the Body Mass Index (BMI) which was classified as Underweight (<18.5kg/m 2 ), Normal (18.5-24.9 kg/m 2 ), Overweight (25.0- 29.9 kg/m 2 ) and Obese (≥30.0kg/m 2 . Dietary Diversity was based on the number of food groups consumed in the previous 24hours and a Dietary Diversity Score (DDS) ranging from 0 to 9 was constructed from a 9-food group model. The mean age of the respondents was 38.8±12years, majority (87%) were male and 59.7% were self-employed. About 40% spent half of their income on food while 10% spent more than three-quarters on food. More than 60% consumed street food daily, 82.1% indicated street meal as the most preferred street food whilst snacks and beverages were preferred by only 13%. Majority (74.0%) consumed street foods in the afternoon and about 20% in the morning. Four out of 10 respondents had low DDS, about half had medium DDS and 10% had high DDS. The nutritional status indicated 25.2% to be overweight while 3.1% and 6.2% were found to be underweight and obese, respectively. A significant association was found between the dietary diversity and nutritional status of the respondents. This study revealed that street food consumers in the ancient town of Oyo, Nigeria were either overweight or obese and their dietary diversity was low. Keywords: Street food, Consumers, Dietary Diversity, Nutritional status, South Western, Nigeria