Healthy lifestyle practices: Evidence from clinic attending mothers in the northern province, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Healthy lifestyles are known to reduce noncommunicable disease-related mortalities and morbidities. Public health initiatives should encourage healthier lifestyles to prevent the risk of noncommunicable diseases. This study aimed to determine healthy lifestyle practices and their associated factors among clinic-attending mothers (mothers attending antenatal clinics, postnatal clinics, well-baby clinics, family planning clinics, well-women clinics, and polyclinics) in the Chavakachcheri Medical Officer of Health (MOH) area. We conducted a clinic-based cross-sectional study in 19 centers covering 28 Public Health Midwives (PHM) areas. Healthy lifestyle practices, such as regular exercise, consumption of recommended servings of fruits and vegetables, measuring their own BMI, and average salt consumption, were poor. In the multivariate analysis, we found only three factors that had higher odds of affecting healthy lifestyle practices that were statistically significant: attributes of higher level of perceptions about healthy lifestyle practices (AOR = 4.36, 1.32–14.39), participating in Mothers’ Support Groups (AOR = 7.97, 2.17–29.27) and BMI value of < 23 kg/m2 (AOR = 4.47, 1.35–14.73). Effective targeted healthy lifestyle-related educational programs instead of regular training during clinic visits and promoting participation in peer groups at the community level may benefit clinic-attending mothers.