Too low energy content and poor composition of meals characterize the diet of most seniors. Meals do not provide them with what they urgently need: an adequate supply of nutrients in line with their requirements. Malnutrition is often the result. In old age, energy requirements decrease due to declining physical activity, but the need for vitamins, trace elements and essential fatty acids remains unchanged – protein requirements are even increased. The demand on the composition of the diet increases accordingly, a higher nutrient density is required.
Causes of malnutrition in old age
But what seniors actually consume rarely meets these requirements. Milk soups, puddings, overcooked vegetables, little meat and certainly no fish – that’s what the diet often looks like. Food loses its meaning and is no longer a source of pleasure. Shopping and preparation are problematic, fresh food is rarely used, meals that have been heated several times are always on the table. Seniors living at home are particularly threatened by underweight.
Loneliness spoils the appetite, medication, problems with the chewing apparatus, a variety of additional illnesses and a lack of exercise promote the restriction of food to the minimum. Low meat consumption is also a contributing factor to inadequate protein intake, which causes protein deficiency in 30 to 65 percent of seniors admitted to hospitals and 50 percent of seniors cared for in nursing homes.
Lean seniors need astronaut diets
Continuously declining and increasingly thin seniors are considered normal in our country. In nursing institutions, there is a shortage of staff and thus of time for care at mealtimes. Swallowing disorders cause anxiety when eating, food running out of the mouth leads to the fact that very old people hardly eat in the company of their fellow residents due to shame and embarrassment. Thus, malnutrition often occurs in old age.
Shockingly, many general practitioners limit themselves to prescribing vitamin preparations that do not provide energy or protein. It is also incomprehensible that astronaut food, which provides an ideal composition of nutrients and is adapted to a wide variety of clinical pictures, has hardly been used to date. Yet this is a simple and reliable support for seniors.
Preventing malnutrition in old age
Simple methods such as looking in the refrigerator or asking for a change in clothing size provide helpful information. If an oral supply is no longer sufficient, tube feeds can compensate for the nutritional deficit. An acceptable quality of life into old age is only possible if the basic need for food is satisfactorily met. This is just as important for seniors as it is for children, but the general population does not realize this. No one should dismiss underweight as a normal and acceptable ageing condition.
The Gesellschaft für Ernährungsmedizin und Dätetik e.V. (Society for Nutritional Medicine and Dietetics) provides support through its Nutritional Medicine Advisory Service.
