Social epidemiology of adverse nutritional status outcomes among women in Nigeria: NDHS, 2008

Adverse nutritional status has been a major challenge to the health of individuals. Poor nutritional status in terms of overweight and underweight predisposes human beings to opportunistic infections and therefore can make the realization of Millennium Development Goals unfeasible. Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, 2008 data on women aged 15-49 was used. Two indicators of adverse nutritional status were measured; those with Body Mass Index (BMI) less than 18.5 kg/m2, an indication of underweight and those with BMI greater than or equal to 25 kg/m2 an indication of overweight. Chi-square and logistic regression were used for the analysis. The results showed that slightly more than one in ten (11.5%) and one in four (24.0%) were undernourished and overweight respectively. Differentials existed across subgroup of women in terms of adverse nutrition. Socio-demographic variables such as age, region, residence, education, wealth index, number of living children, marital status, occupation are significantly associated with overweight and underweight (p<0.001). The risk of overweight is significantly higher among urban women than their rural counterparts (p<0.05) and increases consistently with increasing wealth index and levels of education. Other risk factors of overweight are marriage, monogamy, being a professional or managers. Undernourishment risks show opposite patterns as that of overweight. Women who work at home are approximately twice more likely to be underweight than those who work away from home (p<0.001). Physical health education and adequate dietary intake will go a long way at reducing and increasing body mass for overweight and underweight women respectively.