Assessment of the nutritional status and health risk factors of older women in Khartoum "2".

Abdel-Magied, Ahmed

Assessment of the nutritional status and health risk factors of older women in Khartoum "2" Abdel Magied, Ahmed and Elrefaie, Hind, (School of Family Sciences, Ahfad University for Women)

This study aims to assess the health and nutritional status of older Sudanese women from Khartoum 2 and to identify the health problems and risk factors that faced them. The target group consisted of 100 older women from different age groups. Those were randomly selected by omitting one house in the raw and considering the next. Results were manually analyzed and presented in tabled of frequency and percentage.

According to Sudanese standards, the vast majority of respondents (75%) were of high level if education and only 32% of them were employed. Although more than half of the respondents (59%) were normal, yet a good percentage (41%) suffered from different disabilities. Only few 17% suffered from different situations that could lead to psychological problems or instability. The percentage of those who had back pain (63%), leg pain (56%) and constipation (26%) seems usual for the age of the studied group.

The high percentage (43%) of respondents contracting hypertension is most probably contributed to by organic factors in addition to life stresses. Although there are some genetic reasons for contracting diabetes, their food habits aggravated the situation. The high percentage of obesity (59%) and overweight (29%) might have been some of the main causes of back pain ; leg pain and the high consumption of cereals, sorghum, wheat, rice, sweet potatoes, groundnuts and potatoes as highly starchy foods would very well explain the high percentage of obesity and overweight among the respondents.

Accordingly, relevant recommendations were made, including nutritional education programme, encouraging physical exercise for women and establishing specialized slimming centers for obese and overweight ones; this is in addition to changing their dietary behavior.