Predictive Factors of Healthy Nutrition Behaviours among Middle-aged Staff of Tertiary Institution in Ondo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Healthy nutrition is essential for bodily wellness and health, likewise, maintaining a nutrient-dense diet is critically important for adults because of the impact of food intake on health. The objective of this study was to determine the factors that influence healthy nutrition behaviours among middle-aged staff of tertiary institutions in Ondo State, Nigeria. The Cross-sectional survey design was used in this study. The population of the study was 1967 middle-aged staff of tertiary institutions in Ondo West Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. A sample size of 415 academic and non-academic staff, aged between 40 and 65 years was used. The nutritional subscale of  the Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II) developed by Walker et al. (1987) was adopted and  used for data collection in this study. The research questions were analyzed with mean and standard deviation while multiple linear regressions were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings showed that education level (beta = .351, P = .146) and marital status (beta = -.275, P = .088) made the strongest unique contributions to explaining healthy nutrition behaviours of middle-aged staff. It was concluded that educational level and marital status were strong predictors of healthy nutrition behaviours among middle-aged staff of tertiary institution in Ondo State, Nigeria. It was recommended that public health educators should embark on an informative campaign in tertiary institutions to encourage middle-aged staff  adopt healthy nutrition practice to enhance the physical condition, cognitive condition, cardiovascular function,  immune system and productivity.