Assessment of dietary consumptions, nutrition habits and body mass indexes of working women

Assessment of Dietary Consumptions, Nutrition Habits and Body Mass Indexes of Working Women

Our study was performed among female employees of Dr Siyami Ersek Gogus Kalp-Damar Cerrahisi Egitim ve Arastirma Hastanesi Istanbul, who were working in March and April 2007. It was planned and executed as a partial research in order to determine their adequate and balanced dietary status. We checked their body mass indexes, dietary habits, daily energy and dietary requirements and calculated dietary consumptions for three days. Our universe consists of 651 working women and was performed among 222 women.

To assess personal data, dietary habits and dietary consumptions of participants, a survey was applied. Dietary habits were determined and evaluated by a scoring system which was developed by Hacettepe Universitesi Olcme ve Degerlendirme specialists. Comparisons of means were analized with oneway anova test and relationships between categorical variables were analyzed with Chi-square and Fischer methods.

5.4% of participants were underweight, 67.6% were normal weight, 23.42% were preobez and 3.6% were obese. 76.1% of participants have good or average dietary habits. 61.3% of participants skipped meal. Participants with normal weight generally ate 3 or 4 meals a day. Relation between balanced and imbalanced meals and Body Mass Index was insignificant (p>0.05). Our study showed that women psychological situation (unhappy/tired) effects their weights (p<0.05). More than 50% of participants consumed energy, vitamin B1, B3, folic acid and calcium less then recommended dietary allowances (RDA).

In our research, we found out that working women get energy and some food components inadequate and have improper nutrition habits. For this reason training programs should be arranged and working women should be informed about adequate and balanced nutrition.

Key Words: Body mass index, nutrition, food consumption, nutrition habits, working women.