CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of Study

Eating is one activity most of us take for granted (Donatelle & Davis 1989). At times, according to Donatelle and Davis we are concerned about eating sufficient food that would get us though the day and less attention is given on their nutritional contents. The trend towards a healthful lifestyle calls for healthy eating yet in the effort to eat nutritionally, many people, wonder if they are actually eating a balanced diet or if they have been duped by fed while for some others, any food can go.

Although our choices of food are determined by many factors such as the availability of food in the locality, the money available to purchase these foods, the food supplies including the ways the foods are being processed or prepared and the knowledge and appreciation the individual feels about certain food values (Okafor, 2002), it is important that we realize that we are what we eat and that nutrition has become very important in both preventive and curative healthcare system (United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF 1995). According to UNICEF, dietary factors have been implicated in the etiology of many diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases, cancer and several diseases of children, UNICEF (1995) also pointed the out that Nutrition has shifted from its previous focus on the minimum amount needed to prevent or cure acute deficiency diseases, for example scurvy, and beriberi, to the need to promote health, longitivity and resistance to chronic disorders like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, hypertension, diabetes and even acquires immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). In pregnancy, the importance of nutrition is being emphasized in the newspapers, magazines and health journals and even in many health related television shows to mention but a few.

Nutrition can be defined as the science of food, its use within the body, and its relationship to good health. It includes the study of the major food components – proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals including water and more than 50 various nutrients of which they are composed (Levy, Digman & Shirref, 1984). It is therefore clear that for somebody to eat healthfully he or she must have adequate knowledge of the different components of food we eat.

Nutrition also can be defined as the science that investigates the relationship between physiological functions and the essential elements of the food we eat (Donatelle & Davis 1998). The world book encyclopedia on health (1996) simply puts nutrition as the process by which living things take in foods and use it. It is therefore the study of food and the process of receiving nourishment from the food we eat after digestion and metabolism. Brien (2010) defines it as the study of food and nourishments, examining the nutritional contents of foods, the amount of nutrients required for healthy growth and function and varies for different people.

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