Association of Lifestyle Variables and Anthropometric Variables among Breast Cancer Patients at the University College Hospital, Ibadan

Globally, breast cancer is the commonest cause of cancer death and the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women. This study aim to assess lifestyle indices and anthropometric measurements among breast cancer patients at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. 250 respondents were recruited for the study after anticipating a non-response rate of 10%. Simple random sampling technique was used to select participants for the study. A self-designed open-ended questionnaire was adopted. Two hundred and fifty copies were distributed and retrieved. Data collected were analyzed and descriptive statistics presented in tables and charts while hypothesis were tested using multinomial logistic regression at 0.05 level of significance. Majority 150 (60%) of the respondents were within the age range of 45-64 years and 137 (54.8%) of them had tertiary education. The mean: Age was 50 years, weight before, after diagnosis were 72.8kg and 69.2kg, BMI before, and after diagnosis were 28.65 and 27.21 respectively, waist hip ratio (WHR) was 0.91 and conicity index was 1.37. All the respondents 250 (100%) were involved in different type of exercise before diagnosis but only 100 (40%) continued after diagnosis. Out of about 20 (8%) respondents who were smoking before diagnosis, only 15 (6%) continued smoking after diagnosis and out of the 95 (38%) of those who consumed alcohol before diagnosis, only 90 (36%) continued after diagnosis. There were statistically significant associations between BMI, WHR, obesity and selected lifestyle variables before and after diagnosis at p≤0.05. Conclusively, lifestyle variables were found to have significant influence on the anthropometric measures of the body of breast cancer patients regardless of their morbid or pre-morbid state. This study further ratifies the obesity predictive capacity of the body’s anthropometric measurements, which is largely influenced by various lifestyle indices and perhaps other unknown variables such as genetics and environmental influence. Even though a little modification of certain lifestyles were recorded after respondents were being diagnosed with breast cancer, this undeniably could be as a result of fear of disease outcomes, personal effort to get knowledge or the impact of health education from care givers. It was recommended that caregivers should ensure proper health education of clients on lifestyle changes in order to have a safer life and exclude known factors that can predispose them to breast cancer.