NUTRITIONAL

This study investigated nutritional knowledge and dietary habits among diabetic patients in a tertiary health institution, Edo State. The study aims to ascertain level of nutritional knowledge of diabetes among patients with diabetes, dietary habits of pa tients with diabetes and the factors influencing food consumption pattern of patients with diabetes attending a tertiary institution, Benin City. Three research questions were raised and answered in the study and stated hypothesis was tested at <0.05 level of significance. The study adopted a non-experimental descriptive survey design. The study population was 440 Diabetic patients attending treatment at University of Benin teaching hospital, from which a sample size of 230 respondents were selected for the study using convenient sampling method. A well-structured questionnaire instrument was drafted and used for data collection. The instrument was validated by the research supervisor and two other experts in the field. To ensure the reliability of the instrument, a pilot study was conducted and a reliability value greater than (>0.5) was obtained. The data collected were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics such as frequency count, percentages, means, Anova and graphical representation of results.The result shows that majority of the respondents have fair nutritional knowledge of diabetes. Also, majority of the respondents have poor dietary habits. Furthermore, taste preferences, emotional state, food prices, availability of healthy option are factors influencing food consumption pattern. Based on the findings, it was concluded and recommended that there should be health education by nurses to enlighten people on the importance of good dietary changes to health and mass media outlets such as television, radio, road jingles and posters etc. should be used to disseminate useful information on the importance of nutritional knowledge of diabetes

Malnutrition is the single biggest contributor to under-five mortality due to greater susceptibility to
infections and slow recovery from illness. Every year, an estimated 2.5 million under-five children
in Nigeria suffer from severe acute malnutrition and this makes them vulnerable and nine times
more likely to die from diarrhea, acute respiratory tract infection and fever. This interaction
between malnutrition and infection creates a potentially lethal cycle of worsening illness and
deteriorating nutritional status. OBJECTIVE: To assess the association between the nutritional status and morbidity pattern of
under-five children in Benin-City, Edo State Nigeria. METHODS: This was a community-based cross-sectional study carried out among 771 mother- child pairs that were selected using a multi-stage sampling technique. A structured, pre-tested, interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect information on demographic and socio- economic characteristics, dietary pattern, morbidity pattern and child health practices while
nutritional status was assessed using anthropometric methods. Focus group discussions guide was
used to collect data on maternal knowledge, attitude and practices on child health and infant and
young child feeding. Data was analyzed using Software Statistical Package for Scientific Solutions
(SPSS) version 20.0 manufactured by IBM incorporated and the level of statistical significance was
set at a p< 0.05. RESULTS: A total of 771 mother-child pair participated in this study. The mean age of the
participants was 27.3 ±15.9 months. The results showed that 215 (27.9%) mothers had introduced
complementary foods to their children at the appropriate time. The most consumed food were foodsren. Only 113 (14.7%) of children had an adequately diverse diet, in which they
made from grains, roots and tubers; 26.9% among breastfeeding children and 73.1% among non- breastfeeding child