Abstract
Older people risk poor nutritional status during natural disasters due to low intakes of energy, carbohydrates, protein, and fat. A food bar is a form of emergency food product that contains carbohydrate and protein, and is practical for disaster situations. The study aimed to investigate the effect of a broccoli-soybean-mangrove food bar on older people’s weight following natural disasters. A quasi-experimental pre-post intervention study was designed using 33 subjects at the treatment group of various nutritional status types of older people during two weeks with balanced nutrition education over two weeks. Bivariate analysis with a paired t-test used to test whether weight, macronutrient intakes, and balanced nutrition knowledge were significantly different before and after the study. The study showed broccoli-soybean-mangrove food bar consumption resulted in a significantly increased weight of 0.2 kg, energy (291.9 kcal), protein (6.1 g), carbohydrate (31.1 g), dan fat (15.6 g) intakes. Balanced nutrition education of older people could also substantially increase knowledge of older people regarding nutrition (11.8 points). The proportion of malnourished subjects who gained weight was more remarkable than normal subjects in the first and second weeks of the intervention. However, the proportion of normal nutritional status subjects having increased macronutrients intakes was higher than the malnourished subjects. These findings recommend broccoli-soybean-mangrove food bar consumption to significantly improve weight and macronutrients intakes in older people following a natural disaster. It is necessary to make the broccoli-soybean-mangrove food bar more available, accessible, and affordable to all people in emergencies, mainly for older people.
Highlights
Natural disasters in Indonesia, such as floods, landslides, and earthquakes, continue to increase from year to year
The findings of study showed that broccoli-soybean-mangrove food bar supplementation affects weight gain, which was reflected in the significant difference of weight, energy intake, and increased knowledge about a balanced diet among older people at the end of the study
Malnourished subjects had a higher proportion of weight gain than normal nutritional status subjects in the first and second week
Summary
Natural disasters in Indonesia, such as floods, landslides, and earthquakes, continue to increase from year to year. The intensity of natural disasters in 2019 increased by 32.4%. Hydro-meteorological disasters are the most frequent type in Indonesia [2]. One of the natural disasters that claimed many older people as casualties was the tsunami earthquake in Aceh on 26 December 2004 [3]. Other risk factors for older people’s vulnerability in disasters are reduced access to food, increased degenerative diseases and infections, psychosocial stress, and poverty. Older people in the affected areas should have easy access to food that is easy to prepare. The food for older people in a disaster situation should meet this group’s protein and micronutrient requirements [4]
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