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. 2024 Dec 18;24(1):3453.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-024-20935-6.

Prevalence and determinants of healthy and balanced diet among office workers in a sedentary working environment: evidence from Southern Sri Lanka

Janaka Godevithana  1   2 , Champa Jayalakshmie Wijesinghe  3 , Millawage Supun Dilara Wijesinghe  4
Affiliations

Prevalence and determinants of healthy and balanced diet among office workers in a sedentary working environment: evidence from Southern Sri Lanka

Janaka Godevithana et al. BMC Public Health. .

Abstract

Background: An unhealthy diet is a key risk factor for non-communicable diseases (NCD), which account for a significant number of premature deaths and disability-adjusted life years worldwide. Office workers are reported to have unhealthy and unbalanced diets, while being sedentary due to the nature of their work, placing them at a greater risk of NCD. This study aimed to determine dietary intake and associated factors among sedentary office workers in Southern Sri Lanka.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 518 sedentary workers in 20 offices in the Galle district. Socio-demographic, health and work-related factors and dietary practices were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire. Twenty-four-hour dietary recall was used to assess dietary intake, which was converted into the number of servings from each food group. Healthy dietary intake was defined as 'adherence to the numbers of servings recommended in Food Based Dietary Guidelines for Sri Lankans for more than three food groups including cereal and cereal-based foods, fruits, and vegetables, with the consumption of one or no unhealthy food per day'.

Results: Only 4.6% (n = 24) of the participants consumed a healthy diet, while a considerable proportion had the recommended intake of cereal-based foods, vegetables and fish, meat and pulses (65.3%, 65.8% and 50.8%, respectively). Intake of fruits, dairy products, nuts and seeds was low among the participants. Meal skipping and group eating were significantly associated with an overall unhealthy diet. Stratified analysis showed sex as an effect modifier for the association between group eating and unhealthy diet. In multivariate analysis, none of the factors showed a significant association with healthy dietary intake.

Conclusions: The dietary intake of sedentary office workers was not up to the recommendations. Meal skipping and group eating were associated with unhealthy dietary intake. This study recommends introducing interventions to improve the intake of fruits, dairy products, nuts, and seeds for sedentary office workers.

Keywords: Dietary intake; Dietary risk factors; Eating behaviours; Healthy eating; Sedentary office workers.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: The authors declare that Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna (Registration No. 2020/P/105). Administrative approval was obtained from all relevant authorities (District Secretariat Galle District, Provincial Ministry of Local Government, Regional Director of Health Services-Galle District). Informed written consent was obtained from all office workers before data collection. Workers identified with problems were referred to nearest healthcare facility with consent. Study was conducted while adhering to the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki on ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Consent for publication: In the current study consent for publication is not applicable as no individual-level data with identification was included in the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

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