In many Ghanaian households today, the workday no longer ends at 5 p.m. In busy Ghanaian cities such as Accra and Kumasi, parents experience traffic-clogged streets. Traders and market women rise before dawn, health workers are on rotating shifts, and informal-sector workers juggle multiple jobs, thus, long work hours have become the norm rather than the exception. While these extended hours may help to keep some families financially afloat, they are also quietly changing dietary patterns in ways that threaten the health of both parents and their children.

Ghana cannot lecture families into healthy eating while work and commuting steal the time needed to cook, we must treat time poverty as a nutrition risk and design policy around it. A recent study published in the Journal of Development Effectiveness confirms what many Ghanaian parents already feel that when time is scarce, nutrition is the first sacrifice.

Also, in the Greater Accra Region, researchers from Feminist Economics have highlighted that long working hours and long commutes are pushing families, especially women away from traditional, nutritious diets toward convenience foods that are cheap, fast, and unhealthy. This shift is contributing to under nutrition in children and the rising rate overweight, obesity, and diet-related chronic diseases among adults and adolescents.

Parents who work long hours have little time available to themselves. Meal planning, food preparation, and shared family meals may be reduced at home due to exhaustion. As a result, households increasingly rely on ultra-processed foods, fried foods, sugary beverages, and refined carbohydrates. These foods are energy-dense but nutrient-poor, lacking essential micronutrients such as iron, zinc, vitamin A, and folic acid, nutrients critical for child growth and cognitive development.

Children are especially vulnerable. When parents are time constrained, children’s diets are shaped by caregivers, older siblings, or their own food choices. Breakfast may be skipped entirely, lunch money may often be spent on pastries, sweetened drinks, instant noodles, or fried snacks sold near schools and dinner, when it happens, may be eaten late at night and consist of leftovers or fast food. Over time, these patterns increase the risk of stunting, micronutrient deficiencies, and obesity.

For parents themselves, the health consequences are equally troubling. Long work hours are associated with irregular eating patterns and heavy reliance on fast foods. Combined with physical inactivity and chronic stress, these dietary habits increase the risk of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases and conditions that are already rising rapidly in Ghana.

Some may argue that the issue is not working hours but personal responsibility. After all, healthy Ghanaian foods such as “kontomire” stew, beans, millet porridge, vegetables, fruits, still exist and are still popular diets. But this argument overlooks structural reality. A parent who spends three hours commuting and 10 hours working has limited capacity to shop daily and cook from scratch. In this context, food choices are shaped less by preference and more by time constraints, labour conditions, and urban design.

Others may point out that long working hours are unavoidable in a developing economy, particularly in the informal sector where social protections are weak. That may be true, but accepting long hours as inevitable does not mean ignoring their health consequences. Public health policy must adapt to these realities rather than pretend they do not exist.

So what then must be done? Addressing this issue requires coordinated action across sectors. The Ministry of Health and Ghana Health Service should recognise time poverty as a determinant of diet and promote workplace nutrition standards, including protected meal breaks. Employers, education authorities, and local assemblies must strengthen healthy food environments in workplaces and schools while incentivizing vendors to provide more nutritious options. Transport and urban planning authorities should also reduce commuting time, as time savings can support healthier household dietary practices.

 Ghana cannot afford to treat dietary patterns as a purely private matter. When parents’ long work hours distort what families eat, the consequences ripple across generations, affecting child growth, adult productivity, and the future burden on the health system. If we are serious about improving nutrition and health, we must look beyond the plate and confront the working conditions that shape what ends up on it. The health of Ghana’s parents and children depends on it.

By Grace Fia

After two weeks of hectic activity up north, I drove to the Tamale airport, parked the car at the Civil Aviation car park as usual, paid the usual parking fee and boarded the plane for Accra.

Over the last two weeks, I had shuffled between three sites where work was close to completion. One was a seed warehouse, where farmers would come and pick up good quality maize, sorghum and other planting material.

The other was a health facility for new mothers, where they were given basic training on good nutrition and small-scale business.

And the third was a set of big boreholes for three farming communities.

The projects usually ran on schedule, but a good deal of time was spent building rapport with the local people, to ensure that they would be well patronised and maintained.

It was great to be working in a situation where one’s work was well appreciated. But it certainly involved a lot of work, and proactivity. And I made sure that I recorded updates online before going to bed in the evening.

When the plane took off, my mind shifted to issues in Accra, the big city. The young guys at my office had done some good work. They had secured five or six houses on a row in a good part of the city, and were close to securing the last.

When we got this property, unusually, Abena greeted them casually, and appeared to be comfortable in the guy’s company.

I was quite disappointed to hear that, because until the last few weeks, it seemed as if Abena and I were heading in a good direction. Apart from the affection I had for her, I liked her family. I decided to take it easy, and allow things to fall in whatever direction.

Normally I would take a taxi to her house from the airport and pick her up to my place. This time I went to my sisters’ joint, where they sat by me while I enjoyed a drink and a good meal.

“So Little Brother,” Sister Beesiwa said, “what is it we are hearing about our wife-to-be?”

“When did you conclude that she was your wife-to-be? And what have you heard? I’ve only heard a couple of whispers. Ebo and Nana Kwame called to say that they have seen her in the company of—”

“Well said Little Brother,” Sister Baaba said. “By the way, Nana Kwame called an hour ago to ask if you had arrived because he could not reach you. Someone had told him that Jennifer had boasted to someone that she had connected Abena to a wealthy guy who would take care of her.”

I was beginning to understand. For some time, Abena had been asking me what work I was doing up north, and after I had explained it to her, she kept asking. So I think Jennifer fed her with false stories about me in order to get her to move to the Ampadu guy. Jennifer must have been well compensated for her efforts.

“In that case,” Sister Beesiwa said, “you should be glad that Abena is out of your way. She is easily swayed. Anyone who would make a relationship decision based on a friend’s instigation lacks good sense. I hope the guy is as wealthy as they say?”

“Who gets wealthy running a supermarket chain in Ghana?” Sister Baaba said. “Our supermarkets sell mostly imported products. Look at the foreign exchange rate. And remember that Ghanaians buy second-hand shoes and clothes. Supermarkets are not good business here.”

“Perhaps they are showing off that they are wealthy, but in reality they are not doing so well.”

“Amen to that,” I said. “I’m beginning to understand. For some time, Abena had been asking me what work I was doing up north, and after I had explained it to her, she kept asking. So I think Jennifer fed her with false stories about me in order to get her to move to the Ampadu guy.”

She said that David Forson was Jennifer and one Ampadu guy, from the family that owns the supermarket shops.

Only an agricultural extension worker in the north who did not have the resources to take care of a beautiful girl like her. And apart from being wealthy, the guy comes from an influential family, so Abena had done much better leaving a miserable civil servant like you for him.

“Amen to that,” I said. “I’m beginning to understand.”

“As I’ve already said, I will stop by her place, but I will mind my own business from now. Hey, let’s talk family. How are our parents? And my brothers-in-law? And my nephews and nieces? Why don’t we meet on Sunday? I’m going to drop my bags at my place and go to see Mama and Dad.”

By Ekow de Heer