Investigation of the effects of nutritional habits of textile workers on the working life

In this study, it has been aimed to investigate the effects of the nutritional habits of textile workers who work in a commercial textile factory in Gaziantep on the working lives. Within this aim, it has been planned to investigate, nutritional habits, energy saving levels and affecting factors of workers and to develop proposals. The population of this cross-sectional, descriptive study is composed of employees who work on the day (100 persons) in a private textile factory except for the managers in Gaziantep in May-June 2016 date. All the population has been included in the study and 93 people were interviewed. The research data was collected by the survey that consists of questions including socio-demographic characteristics, work status, work accidents passing situations, eating habits and their health status and it was implemented under direct observation. The personal information of the particiapants of the study was collected and their height and body weight were measured, BMIs are calculated. While the energies of workers were identified, firstly their energies for basal metabolism were calculated and the results were multiplied by the coefficient of physical activity. The data were analyzed by using frequency, t-test, ANNOVA and correalational analysis. 96.8% of workers working in factories in this study are men and 3.2% of females with a mean age 33.64 ± 7.55 respectively. 23.7% of workers are primary school graduates, 18.3% of them are high school graduates, 46.2% of them are high school graduates and college graduates is 9.7%. 59.2% of workers stated that they skip meals and 31.2% of breakfast are in the morning. When looked at the distribution of the BMI values of the workers in this study, 42.4% in the classification of BMI of the workers are considered to as overweight and 11.7% are as obese. BMI values are higher in older workers. When the physical activity of workers increases, BMI values decrease. In this study it has been found that the workers who work in a textile factory don't have an adequate and balanced diet. The amount of energy as calories of the workers is lower than the recommended amount; hovewer their carbohydrate, protein and fat ratio as food items, are found to be in the recommended ratio. At the end of the study it has been reached that it can be better to engage a professional nutritionist or food engineer who calculate the needed calories for the workers, prepare menus in the work place according to these calories and make inspections in the workplace. Key words: Workers, eating habits, energy expenditure, worker health.