The Challenges of Hunger and Malnutrition

Comfort Keepers^® wants every senior to live a happy, healthy, independent life.

That’s why we launched the STOP Senior Hunger campaign – to combat a very serious threat to senior health and well-being.

The Meals on Wheels Association reports that by 2025 an estimated 9.5 million seniors will experience hunger or malnutrition—up 75 percent from 2005. Comfort Keepers wants to end this rising trend by providing information on the warning signs of senior hunger and making sure the special seniors our Comfort Keepers care for are getting the nutrition they need.

Malnutrition affects 5 to 10 percent of older adults who live independently, according to a 2001 study published in Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition and Metabolic Care.

Malnutrition poses a variety of threats to the elderly:

• A decline in physical activity and function
• Worsening of existing medical conditions
• Weakened immune system and increased vulnerability to disease
• Higher mortality

According to the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, eating generous amounts of vegetables, fruits and whole grains results in a longer, higher quality life. This study, Dietary Patterns and Survival of Older Adults, was published in 2011 and tracked 3,075 older adults, age 70 to 79, from 1997 to 2004.

Despite the known benefits, seniors face many obstacles to consuming a diet that provides an adequate amount of health-promoting nutrients. Among these are:

• Debilitating conditions and limited mobility, which affect seniors’ ability to shop, prepare meals and feed themselves
• Fixed incomes that limit their ability to buy nourishing food
• Frailty due to loss of muscle mass and fat, which can alter body chemistry and diminish appetite, especially in seniors with serious illnesses
• Medications that diminish appetite, alter the flavor of foods, and interfere with absorption of nutrients
• Reduced absorption of nutrients as a result of physiological changes due to aging
• Age-related loss of sense of taste or smell that take away some of the pleasures of eating and reduce appetite. Some medications and illnesses accelerate or intensify this loss.
• Dementia, which often prevents individuals from recognizing the need to eat
• Depression, which affects an estimated 6 million seniors in America. Depression may be a result of loneliness, retirement, poor health or medications.
• Chewing and swallowing difficulty
• Living alone. Being able to eat with someone can stimulate appetite.

Intervention/Prevention

Caregivers can do much to counteract the obstacles to senior nutrition. For instance:

• Help with food shopping, food preparation and cooking
• Know a senior’s food preferences
• Provide company, since seniors tend to eat more with others
• Try oral nutritional supplements to provide a senior extra calories and protein he or she isn’t getting because of diminished appetite

The Comfort Keepers special brand of caring for seniors, Interactive Caregiving^®, emphasizes the importance of engaging seniors in activities that promote good nutritional habits. Our Comfort Keepers cook with seniors, help them with shopping, and eat meals with them to make sure they get necessary nutrition. Contact us for more information about how Comfort Keepers helps seniors get essential nutrition or visit our STOP Senior Hunger page.