Nutrition and Exercise as a Tool in Controlling Cardiovascular Diseases among the Elderly in Anambra State: New Perspective

The research investigated the perception of nutrition and exercise as a tool in controlling
Cardiovascular Diseases (CVDs) among elderly civil servants in Anambra State of Nigeria. A total of
respondents comprising 150 elderly academic staff of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka and 100
senior civil servants in the Anambra state civil service, all in Awka, who willingly, volunteered to
participate in the study. Their ages ranged between 55 – 65 years and were purposively selected. The
instrument for data collection was a self structured questionnaire with a reliability value of 0.73 using
the test retest method. All data collected were subjected to descriptive statistics of frequency,
percentages and chi square inferential statistics tested at 0.05 level of significance. Findings from the
study showed that nutrition (diet) and exercise having significant effect in the prevention/control of
(CVDs) among the elderly and equally reduce the chances of its on-set among young adults too. It is
therefore recommended that at the civil service secretariats, universities and other establishments
and parastatals should establish high standard eateries (restaurant) where well qualified caterers
would regularly provide quality nutritious diet, at highly subsidized rate for workers in this category. In
order to enable these class of workers have at least one good meal per day, in addition to a
mandatory one work-free (2.00p – 4.00) afternoon for routine/regular physical exercises.