ASSESSMENT OF DIETARY PATTERNS OF UNDERGRADUATES OF PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES IN EDO AND DELTA STATES, NIGERIA
Keywords:
Dietary Patterns, Undergraduates, Public Universities, GenderAbstract
AbstractThe study examined dietary patterns among undergraduate students of universities in Edo and Delta States, Nigeria using the ex-post facto research design. The population of the study consisted of 93,331 undergraduate students in nine public universities in Edo and Delta States. The multistage sampling technique was used in the study. The balloting sampling technique was used to select 150 undergraduate students from 200 – 400 levels in each Department from two Faculties in each University. The instruments that were used for data collection was an adapted structured questionnaire titled: Dietary Patterns Questionnaire for Undergraduates (DPQU). The Cronbach reliability Alpha of the instrument was 0.86. The research question 1 was analysed using descriptive statistics - Mean (X), Standard Deviation (SD) while the hypothesis was tested using t-test for two independent sample means at 0.05 level of significance. The result showed that dietary patterns do not change with respect to gender. The result further shows that environment dictates students choice of meal per time as many eat more of noodles, soft drink, eat in- between meals, eat food high in sugar, fat, salt, cassava food, beans products, baked food among others. It was recommended that the Ministry of Health should introduce a comprehensive public health intervention measure including a comprehensive nutritional and health education programme for undergraduate students as it is needed to promote knowledge of healthy dieting and lifestyle.
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