DIETARY HABITS, NUTRITIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND ANTHROPOMETRIC STATUS OF LONG-DISTANCE COMMERCIAL DRIVERS IN YENAGOA, BAYELSA STATE.

Background: The informal labour sector is laden with peculiar dietary and lifestyle behaviours which affect their nutritional status, and commercial drivers are not an exception. Therefore, this study was designed to assess the nutritional knowledge, dietary habits, and anthropometric status of commercial drivers.

Methods: The study used a descriptive cross-sectional design and a multi-stage sampling to recruit 220 respondents. A validated structured self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Anthropometric and physical activity levels were measured and categorized using the appropriate procedures and reference standards. Analyses were done using IBM SPSS version 23.

Results: Results revealed that selected commercial drivers were mainly young adults, Christians, married, earn between 50,000 to 100,000 with secondary education. The prevalence of good knowledge was considerably low while the bulk of them had poor knowledge of nutrition. Waist circumference and waist-hip-ratio measurement revealed that most respondents were at low risk of obesity and other metabolic diseases. A significant relationship exists between the nutrition knowledge of the respondents and dietary habits. Physical activity level had an inverse association with the BMI values of the respondents.

Conclusion: The respondents had low nutrition knowledge, poor dietary habits, low physical activity and high body mass index which are significantly interlinked. Thus, efforts to promote healthy dietary habits and physical activity engagement of the respondents through enhanced nutrition education efforts and improved quality of street food environment and creative sports events for these groups should be encouraged.