Eating Alone or Together among Community-Living Older People-A Scoping Review.

Amanda Björnwall,Afsaneh Koochek,Ylva Mattsson Sydner,Nicklas Neuman

doi:10.3390/ijerph18073495

Abstract

Research on healthy aging commonly concerns problems related to loneliness and food intake. These are not independent aspects of health since eating, beyond its biological necessity, is a central part of social life. This scoping review aimed to map scientific articles on eating alone or together among community-living older people, and to identify relevant research gaps. Four databases were searched, 989 articles were identified and 98 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. In the first theme, eating alone or together are treated as central topics of interest, isolated from adjoining, broader concepts such as social participation. In the second, eating alone or together are one aspect of the findings, e.g., one of several risk factors for malnutrition. Findings confirm the significance of commensality in older peoples’ life. We recommend future research designs allowing identification of causal relationships, using refined ways of measuring meals alone or together, and qualitative methods adding complexity.

Highlights

Research on health and aging commonly concerns problems related to loneliness [1]and food intake [2]
Having mapped out scientific articles presently available on eating alone or with others among community-living older people, we found a wide range of topics and methods
We suggest that measurements of commensality should be informed by qualitative findings, since these, as our results show, may add complexity and nuances from stories of older people who are neutral about having eating companions, or prefer eating alone

Summary

Introduction

Research on health and aging commonly concerns problems related to loneliness [1]and food intake [2]. Research on health and aging commonly concerns problems related to loneliness [1]. Loneliness and food-related problems are not independent aspects of health since eating, beyond its biological necessity, is a central part of social life [4]. Reviews on food in later life that illuminate the role of eating alone or with others have primarily focused on institutionalized people [7,8], overlooking a large community-living population. The aim of this article was to map the currently available scientific articles on eating alone or together with others among community-living older people. We aimed to identify research gaps relevant for future studies. With this aim, of searching broadly across disciplines, methodological approaches, outcomes (sociocultural, psychological, dietary, etc.), and geographical locations, a scoping review was chosen as our method

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion