NUTRITIONAL ASSESSMENT AND NUTRITION EDUCATION NEEDS OF RETIREES IN ABIA STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Retirement is a transition from paid occupation to other life ventures and is associated with aging, which isa degenerative process and thus points at the need for a continuous nutritional assessment of this age groupin other to identify their nutrition educational needs. The study was a cross sectional design. A systematicrandom sampling technique was used to select 100 retirees for the study. Questionnaire and interview wasthe instruments for data collection. Height and weight measurement were also taken and used to obtain theirBMI. A 24 hours dietary recall was used to get their dietary diversity score. Blood pressure was measuredwith a mercury sphygmomanometer at least twice in each participant. Random Blood Glucose was checkedwith venous blood. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percent) was employed using SPSS version 21 whilesignificance was accepted at p<0.05. Result showed that 65% of the participants were female while 35%were males. The prevalence of overweight and obesity observed in this study was 30% and 46% respectively,39% were hypertensive, 8% had diabetes. Many (85%) of the retirees were at high risk of metabolicconditions while 6% and 9% of the retirees were at moderate and low risk respectively. Less than half (47%)of the retirees had medium dietary diversity, 39% had low dietary diversity while 14% had high dietarydiversity. Many 74%, 65% and 58% of them stated their need for education on dietary management ofdiabetes, hypertension and basic nutrition (foods) for the aged. The nutritional status and nutrition educationneed of the retirees needs to be checked most often which is aimed at reducing the risk factors of underand/or over nutrition for the retirees in Abia state as well manage those with health conditions such asdiabetes, hypertension and co-morbidities.