Energy and macronutrients intake of the elderly aged 75 years and above in China in 2015

Abstract

To analyze the intake of energy and macronutrients in the elderly aged 75 years and above in China. The data was sourced from the China National Chronic Non-communicable Disease and Nutrition Surveillance, which adopted a multi-stage stratified clustered random sampling method and selected 298 monitoring points from 31 provinces across the country to carry out chronic non-communicable disease and nutrition surveillance of Chinese adults. The condiments weighting method and 3-day 24-hour dietary review method were used to collect dietary data for residents. Based on the dietary survey result of 3368 elderly people aged 75 years and above in the surveillance, the intake of energy and macro nutrients of elderly people was analyzed. Among the elderly aged 75 years and above included in the analysis, there were 1727 males and 1641 females, 1511 people in urban areas and 1857 people in rural areas, 1956 people aged 75-79, 1412 people aged ≥ 80. The average energy intake of the elderly aged 75 years and above in China was(1601.0±473.4)kcal, and the average intakes of carbohydrate, protein and fat were(219.6±76.6)g, (48.2±18.6)g and(60.2±31.5)g, respectively. The energy supply ratios of carbohydrate, protein and fat were 54.9%, 12.0% and 33.1% respectively. The carbohydrate intake and its energy supply ratio of the urban elderly((200.0±74.0)g and 51.8%) were significantly lower than those of the rural elderly((235.5±75.0) and 57.4%), while the protein intake and its energy supply ratio((50.2±18.9)g and 13.0%), fat intake and its energy supply ratio((61.2±30.2)g and 35.2%)of the urban elderly were significantly higher than those of the rural elderly((46.5±18.2)g and 11.2% for protein, and(59.4±32.5)g and 31.4% for fat). According to Chinese dietary reference intake standard, only 28.1% of the elderly aged 75 and above reached the recommended value of energy, 71.9% of the elderly did not take enough energy, the proportion of insufficient protein intake was 72.2%, 68.5% in urban areas and 75.2% in rural areas, the proportion of people with fat to energy ratio more than 30% was 58.5%, 65.3% in urban areas and 52.9% in rural areas. The energy intake of the elderly aged 75 years and above in China was insufficient, the protein intake was low, the fat to energy ratio was too high, and the dietary structure was unreasonable.