THE EFFECTIVENESS OF DIETARY INTERVENTION STRATEGIES (AS PART OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE) AIMED AT REDUCING OBESITY PREVALENCE AMONGST ADULTS

This study was carried out on the effectiveness of dietary intervention strategies (as part of primary health care) aimed at reducing obesity prevalence among adults in Ikorodu Lagos State. The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study. The population size comprised of healthcare workers in the 6 selected primary healthcare in Ikorodu Lagos State. In determining the sample size, the researcher purposefully selected 100 respondents and 100 were validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection.

The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables, and mean scores.  The result of the findings reveals that obesity has some detrimental health effect which include; cancers, cardiovascular diseases, osteoarthritis, gall bladder disease, dyslipidaemia, and sleep apnoea. The study also revealed that primary healthcare is effective in curtailing the prevalence of obesity through dietary intervention strategy.

Furthermore, the study revealed that primary healthcare is effective in controlling the weight of obese adults. Therefore, there is potential evidence that the behaviour of primary health care providers in offering dietary ad- vice can be increased through a range of strategies, although this has yet to be shown to lead to changes in BMI.  Further  implementation  studies  are  needed to strengthen the evidence base. To mention but a few.