Effect of Nutrition Counseling on Anthropometry of Middle Aged Type 2 Diabetics

Abstract

A sample of 90 middle-aged type 2 diabetics (45 male and 45 female) was selected from the OPD of the Government Sardar Patel Medical College and Hospital, Bikaner, and were equally divided in three groups on the basis of BMI, obese, normal weight and underweight. Further, equal number of males and females were studied under each group. Purposive sampling was used to select the subjects who were suffering from type 2 diabetes mellitus for the last five years and were only on oral hypoglycemic drugs for the treatment of the disease and not on insulin. A structured interview schedule was developed to collect the pertinent information from the respondents. General information like subjects’ age, sex, income, educational status, occupational status, food habits and type of lifestyle were studied. Past history of the subjects in relation to diabetes like age at onset of disease, duration of disease, history of disease in the family, associated diseases and symptoms occurring on hyperglycemia were also studied. The nutritional profile of the subjects was assessed using anthropometry. Data on anthropometry was collected twice – first record was taken at starting of the study (prior to counseling) and the second after 3 months of nutrition counseling. Maximum percentage of subjects (55.55%) fell in the age group of 45–55 years at the time of study. On the basis of type of lifestyle, it was concluded that 93.33 per cent subjects were leading sedentary life whereas only 6.67 per cent subjects were doing moderate activity and no subject was involved in heavy activity in their daily life. Thus, the level of activity was found to be very low in majority of the subjects. The mean age at the onset of diabetes was 47 years. Thus, maximum number of subjects suffered from diabetes above 40 years of age. Positive history of diabetes was noted in 46.67 per cent subjects and negative history of diabetes was noted in 53.33 per cent subjects in the family. Of all the various symptoms observed due to hyperglycemia, weakness was found to be the most common among the subjects, i.e., 82.22 per cent, followed by polyuria (78.88%) and nocturia (41.11%). Hypertension was the most common associated complication noted in 64.44 per cent subjects. The second leading problem noted was cardiovascular diseases found in 35.55 per cent subjects followed by eye diseases in 27.77 per cent subjects. As compared to prior counseling level, after the counseling, obese males and females were noted to be near to “normal” BMI category. Non-significant variation was seen in the BMI in normal weight subjects. In underweight subjects, the BMI significantly changed from “low weight but normal” to “normal.” Impact of education and counseling was noted, as significant decrease in WHR in obese subjects to within normal range, i.e., between 0.85 and 0.90 and the underweight subjects also had significant increase from low WHR to normal WHR. The overall mean body fat prior and after the counseling was 23.1 per cent and 20.6 per cent. A non-significant difference was estimated when overall mean was compared prior and after the counseling. When comparison was done within the BMI groups separately, highly significant difference after the counseling was noticed in obese and underweight categories whereas a non-significant difference was calculated in normal weight BMI group.

Keywords: Anthropometry, type 2 diabetics, body mass index, waist hip ratio, body fat, nutrition counseling