NATURE AND EXTENT OF THE HOSPITAL FOOD ENVIRONMENT WITHIN THE PREMISES OF THE FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTRE UMUAHIA

ABSTRACT The hospital food environment is a complex system encompassing all aspects of food provision within a hospital setting. The study examined nature and extent of the hospital food environment within the premises of the Federal Medical Centre Umuahia. The work involved food environment assessment beyond the hospital. The study population comprised of all the Departments in the hospital and all means of advertisement in the hospital. Information on the food adverts was collected through open data kit (ODK) to ascertain the product description, product type, and product characters, and healthy and unhealthy food categories. Billboard posters, banner (digital, food vending type such as bus shelter, shop or cat) were measured using measuring tape to ascertain the nature and extent of advertisement present in the study area. The data collected was described by target audience (billboards, poster, and banner), the number of advertisement, total number of foods products, number of adverts and non-adverts products, types of food categories advertised, advertising technique used and nutritional quality of the food advertised. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) computer program version 23 was used to analyze the data. Data from the Open data kit was grouped in sections and keyed to the software. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage and mean) "was used to present information on the product and type. The study showed that (100%) had small advert size. The study revealed that (100%) of the respondents used poster/banner as type of advert. All (100%) of the respondents had non-core unhealthy food. Based on the food category code, (88.2%) were bread, rice and rice product while (11.8%) were energy drink. Majority (90%) of the retail store had nut while (10%) do not, (100%) no 100 percent juice, (100%) no 100 whole grain bread, (100%) low sugar cereals, more than half (55%) of the retail store don't have different varieties of milk while (45%) have different varieties of milk, (100%) no skimmed yoghurt, (100%) no cheese, majority (80%) had eggs while (20%) do not, (100%) of the retail store had no extra virgin olive oil, (90%) of the retail store had no whole rice while (10%) had whole rice, (100%) no white rice, more than half (75%) had legumes while (25%) no legumes, more than half (80%) of the retail stores had no red meat while (20%) had red meat, (80%) of the retail store had poultry meat while (20%) do not, (95%) no canned tuna while (5%) had canned tuna. Based on the results, recommendation was made that healthier and affordable foods should be made available within the hospital premises to create healthier food environment.