Body Size Perceptions and Weight Status of Adults in a Nigerian Rural Community

Background: Overweight and obesity are now recognized worldwide as increasing public health problems throughout the life course and wrong perception of one’s body size may reduce the motivation for an overweight person to lose weight. Aim: This study was conducted to investigate how Nigerian rural dwellers perceive their body size and how their perception agrees with their body mass index (BMI). Subjects and Methods: A cross‑sectional sample of 183 adults living in a rural community, South‑West Nigeria was randomly recruited into the study. Their verbal and visual body size perceptions were assessed through structured questions and body images. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results: Thirty‑five percent (64/183) of participants were classified as either overweight or obese by BMI. More than half of the participants perceived themselves as normal weight. More women perceived themselves to be obese than men in both verbal and visual perceptions. Based on BMI classification, 43% (79/183) and 54% (98/183) of participants misperceived themselves in verbal and visual perception, respectively. Underestimation of body size was higher in men (38.3%, 36/94) while overestimation was higher in women (9.0%, 8/89). Men had consistently higher values of kappa coefficient which indicate greater agreement than women in both types of perception. Conclusion: We found considerable gender differences in body weight perception of adults in the Nigerian rural community. A large proportion of these rural dwellers could not appropriately classify their weight status; and over 30% (64/183) and nearly 50% (92/183) of them underestimated their own body weight in verbal and visual perceptions respectively.Keywords: Body perception, Overweight, Rural community, Weight statu

Impact of gari consumption on the water resource of Nigeria

The consumption of gari (or roasted cassava granule) is connected to a chain of impacts on the water resource in the country where cassava crop is grown, processed and consumed. The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of gari consumption on the water resource of Nigeria. The paper elaborates on two types of impact: evaporation of infiltrated rainwater for cassava plant growth (green water use) and the abstraction of ground and/or surface water for processing, including that of consumption athousehold level (blue water use), while water pollution impacts during processing and consumption (at households) are neglected. Using the 2007 cassava production estimates for Nigeria as baseline, the water impact related to the consumption of gari either as snack or as “eba” (gari reconstituted with hot water to form a dough-like paste) is estimated at 10.52 x 109 m3, out of which 0.38% is due to the use of blue water and 91.3% is due to the use of green water (no dilution water impacts measured in this paper). Under the traditional farming practices, the major volume of water needed to grow the cassava plant is from rainwater. For the total water needed in gari consumption starting from cultivation, thewater used in the processing and consumption (at household level) is a significant fraction (about 0.4%) of the soil moisture used to grow the cassava plant. However, the impact of this fraction is often significant: One, it is the blue water (abstracted from surface and/or sub-surface sources) that is often scarcely available and two, it is this blue water sources that are also polluted by the waste flows from the processing and consumption sites

The influence of mosquito resting behaviour and associated microclimate for malaria risk

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The majority of the mosquito and parasite life-history traits that combine to determine malaria transmission intensity are temperature sensitive. In most cases, the process-based models used to estimate malaria risk and inform control and prevention strategies utilize measures of mean outdoor temperature. Evidence suggests, however, that certain malaria vectors can spend large parts of their adult life resting indoors.</p> <p>Presentation of hypothesis</p> <p>If significant proportions of mosquitoes are resting indoors and indoor conditions differ markedly from ambient conditions, simple use of outdoor temperatures will not provide reliable estimates of malaria transmission intensity. To date, few studies have quantified the differential effects of indoor <it>vs </it>outdoor temperatures explicitly, reflecting a lack of proper understanding of mosquito resting behaviour and associated microclimate.</p> <p>Testing the hypothesis</p> <p>Published records from 8 village sites in East Africa revealed temperatures to be warmer indoors than outdoors and to generally show less daily variation. Exploring the effects of these temperatures on malaria parasite development rate suggested indoor-resting mosquitoes could transmit malaria between 0.3 and 22.5 days earlier than outdoor-resting mosquitoes. These differences translate to increases in transmission risk ranging from 5 to approaching 3,000%, relative to predictions based on outdoor temperatures. The pattern appears robust for low- and highland areas, with differences increasing with altitude.</p> <p>Implications of the hypothesis</p> <p>Differences in indoor <it>vs </it>outdoor environments lead to large differences in the limits and the intensity of malaria transmission. This finding highlights a need to better understand mosquito resting behaviour and the associated microclimate, and to broaden assessments of transmission ecology and risk to consider the potentially important role of endophily.</p