Appropriate topics for nutrition education for the elderly

Abstract

A self-administered questionnaire was used in a cross-sectional survey of 459 individuals, between 55 and 89 years old, to identify topics in food and nutrition of greatest interest and concern to generally healthy, older individuals, and to estimate the extent to which relevant behaviors were related to those concerns.In this study, 84.9% of the married men engaged in food shopping and 83.4% in cooking at least some of the time. There were no gender-related differences in either health concerns or behaviors associated with those concerns. This suggests that nutrition education interventions for the elderly should be designed to appeal to both men and women.Food safety in the home and of the food supply were of great concern to more individuals than any diet and health topic explored, and were associated with several health purchasing and food handling behaviors. Among diet-related topics, concern about salt intake ranked first, followed by weight control, sugar intake, serum cholesterol, and nutritional adequacy of the diet. Concern about these topics and either diagnosis-related information or specific advice from the doctor were associated with reported dietary modifications. Print and audiovisual media were important sources of information about certain topics.This survey was conducted for the immediate purpose of guiding the content of a nutrition education video program for the elderly. However, the information obtained can also be used for the development of other types of programs.