4 part by the sedentary lifestyle, of the market people most of whom sit in one place and conduct their businesses. Apart from leading sedentary life style most of them do not have regular exercise. Also these market workers spend most of the day at the market and therefore depend on food vendors and fast food for most of their meals. The food from these sources is salt laden to improve taste. The typical local meal consists mainly of root crops of yam and processed cassava eaten with a soup or stew, prepared with a vegetable to which pieces of ﬁsh and meat are added. The root crops are low in mineral content including sodium [17]. The local meal itself is usually low in salt [18]. However, food vendors at the market use a lot of salt and seasoning to improve the taste of food. In addition, “Western” fast food joints oﬀering meat pie, doughnut, hambugers, and beefburgers are now commonplace at the market. These processed food items are high in salt content. These ﬁndings underscore the need for public health eﬀorts to increase awareness and treatment among market workers. These eﬀorts have been found eﬀective in some at risk groups [19]. 4.2. Awareness, Treatment, and Control of Hypertension. The low level of awareness of hypertension is a global phenomenon [20, 21]. As recently as 2007, Omuemu et al. [22] documented an awareness rate of 18.55 in Edo state, Nigeria. The overall poor level of education may partially explain the low level of awareness in this population. Enugu state has 1017 registered doctors serving a popu- lation of 3,257,298 according to the 2006 population census [23] with a ratio of 31 per 100,000 people. Although this is slightly higher than the national average of 28 per 100,000 [24], it is still far below the WHO recommendation of 1 to 600. This low doctor patient ratio in the study, area may aﬀect accessibility to health care and may explain in part the low awareness of the study population. In this study, only 29.4% of the hypertensive patients were aware of their hypertension. This is however in consonance with the general trend of low level awareness of the disease worldwide. 4.3. Age Distribution of Hypertension. In this study the prevalence of hypertension increased with age ranging from 5% in the age group less than twenty years to 80% in the age group ≥70 years (Table 3). This trend of increasing prevalence of hypertension is a global phenomenon. 4.4. Risk Factors for Hypertension. Processed high-salt food, calorically dense food, and cigarette smoking are some of the causes of CVD epidemic. A recent community-based study by Ulasi et al. [4] of hypertension and cardiometabolic syndrome in Nigeria found that the prevalence of obesity was 11.7% in rural communities and 19.2% in semiurban communities. The higher prevalence of obesity in the semiurban communities was attributed in part to adoption of Western lifestyle including diet. The values are lower than the prevalence of obesity of 22.6% in market workers in this study. There is a direct relationship between obesity and hypertension. International Journal of Hypertension The prevalence of overweight/obesity in this study pop- ulation and the food habit may explain in part the very high prevalence of hypertension. 5. Conclusion The prevalence of hypertension in market workers in this study was 42.2%, and, majority of them were unaware of their disease. The high prevalence marks market workers as special at-risk group for hypertension. This is a major public health challenge. The high prevalence of hypertension in this group may be explained in part by their sedentary lifestyle, salt-laden fast food, and obesity. This subpopulation needs special attention including intensive health education in hypertension management. Large scale population screening for hypertension is warranted and adequate blood pressure control is imperative to mitigate the mortality and morbidity associated with hypertension. About a ﬁfth of the study population were obese. It is time to emphasize weight management to avoid the looming pandemic of obesity. 6. Limitation of Study This study was carried out on an unselected group of market people. The diagnosis of hypertension was based on a mean of three blood pressure measurements at one sitting and this may have aﬀected the overall prevalence of hypertension in this study. References [1] P. M. Kearney, M. Whelton, K. Reynolds, P. K. Whelton, and J. He, “Worldwide prevalence of hypertension: a systematic review,” Journal of Hypertension, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 11–19, 2004. [2] P. M. Kearney, M. Whelton, K. Reynolds, P. Muntner, P. K. Whelton, and J. He, “Global burden of hypertension: analysis of worldwide data,” Lancet, vol. 365, no. 9455, pp. 217–223, 2005. [3] I. Hajjar, J. M. 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