Helping Our Grandparents With a Healthy Diet
Everyones talking about eating problems and poor nutrition in children and young adults, but you rarely hear about eating issues that involve seniors. Sadly, while these problems arise from different reasons for seniors than they do for young people, they are still fairly wide spread.
There are several reasons why or aging population may have unhealthy eating habits. I believe most of them do it foe the same reason. They don’t want to admit to the people who love them that they are getting old and their body aren’t as strong as the use to be also the fear that they no longer will be able to take care of themselves. That’s why it’s important to be supportive of to your loved ones and look out for signs they are not eating properly. some of the main reasons they are not eating properly.
Problems with teeth and gums .
We spend a lot of time eating and this means chewing. This is perfectly natural but over time it causes wear and tear to our teeth and jaws. Which can cause some pain and other chewing difficulties later in life. Many seniors aren’t eating because it hurts thier teeth and gums and they don’t want to see a doctor about the problem because he might take there teeth out.
Depression.
We know that depression can cause people to eat less and lose weight. Also if a senior doesn’t have anyone to eat with they might not eat at all because they have spent the the lives eating with there family which may be gone know which adds to the feeling of unhappiness.
Inability to shop or cook.
While we take shopping and cooking for granted, some seniors have physical limitations that keep them from going to the store or cooking for them selves.It may be that they just can’t walk that far because of arthritis , this can leave the leave the feeling powerless and can stop them having as many meals as the would like to have.
Medication
Prescriptions and medications that can improve the lives of seniors, can also affect their appetite or upset their stomach which s just one of the undesired side effects of talking multi-able medications
The Cost
many old people are not the pention and their food choices are limited to what’s on special that week, which can lead to them eating alot of poor quality food because they just have no other choice, when money is tight the nice things are always cut out.
The best thing we can do to help our aging family members diets is to eat as many meals as we can with them and that if they need our help all they need do is ask.
Josh Panebianco
Sydney Active Personal Training
