Diet acculturation and anthropometric measurements among orang Asli in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia

Background: This study was carried out to determine the relationship between dietary acculturation and anthropometric measurements among Orang Asli adults in Gombak, Selangor, Malaysia. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study involved 85 Orang Asli adults aged 18 to 59 years old living in Gombak settlement. The information on socio-demographic characteristics, general acculturation and dietary acculturation were collected via interview-administered questionnaire. Anthropometric measurements on weight, height, waist circumference and body fat percentage were carried out. Result: The mean general acculturation score was 61.7±9.7% and 67% respondents were bicultural. Other than that, based on the total dietary acculturation score, 47.1% practiced bicultural diet. In fact, around half of the respondents were overweight (30.6%) or obese (25.9%). Besides, significant linear relationships were discovered between Western dietary acculturation with waist circumference (B=1.72, p<0.05) and body fat percentage (B=1.21, p<0.05). Furthermore, Indian dietary acculturation was significantly related with increased BMI (B=0.77, p<0.05), waist circumference (B=2.07, p<0.05) and body fat percentage (B=1.55, p<0.01). Conclusion: The majority of the respondents lived as bicultural and practiced bicultural diet. The acculturation of Western and Indian diets had been related to the increased risk overweight or obesity. Thus, more nutrition education and nutrition promotion programs pertaining to healthy food choices need to be organized in order to improve nutritional status among Orang Asli in Malaysia

Financial practices and physical health influencing financial health of Malaysian employees

Individuals make financial decisions throughout their working days to be financially well. Physical health and financial health of individual may be interrelated and determined the choice of financial practices that they performed. This study aimed to identify the interrelation between financial practices, physical health and financial health of employees. Important factors affecting financial health of employees are also identified. Prior to these, the employees’ levels of financial practices, health risks and financial health were determined. Four states selected from four zones in Peninsular Malaysia were sampled via multistage random sampling to obtain a target of 500 respondents. Selected agencies in those states were contacted to appoint liason officers who facilitated the data collection processes. Self-administered questionnaires distributed through them resulted in only 356 usable questionnaires. Findings revealed that among the financial practices, only investment was found to be not significantly correlated with financial health, however the regression results revealed that only savings was found to be influencing financial health. This reflected that other financial practices were not as important as savings to the financial health. Health risks were prevalent from the physical and mental measures of health with PCS and MCS slightly below the border of 50 while financial health was slightly above the midpoint of its scale. Older employees with higher income were revealed to have better financial health as compared to younger and lower income employees. Furthermore, only physical measure of health significantly influenced financial health but not mental health. As majority of these employees were young, the health risks may pose a risk on their job productivity and the impact on the quality of public services. Thus, it is critical for the government to forsee these health risks and financial health situation of their employees to ensure better outcomes for the public and country

Food security: concepts and definitions

Background : The purpose of this article is to review the definitions of food security and food insecurity as well as the concepts related to food security. Methodology: This is a systematic review on a few papers, research, and articles according to studies and research by various organizations, experts, scholars on food security in developed and developing countries. Result : The first definition of food security was given to reflect the comprehensive concerns on the availability of world food supplies. The definition was expanded to incorporate accessibility of food for all people at all times. Then, the complex definitions of food security incorporated food accessibility and availability as well as the quality of food intake. Latest definition integrates the social aspect of food that should be accessed in a socially acceptable way. Broad definition of food insecurity and several terms that closely related were also discovered. The four main concepts of food security from these definitions were identified; availability, accessibility, acceptability and adequacy. These concepts of food security are relevant to micro, meso and macro levels of social and administrative organizations. Conclusion : Understanding definitions and concepts of food security can assist researchers, policy makers and program implementers to conduct research that address the issues of food security