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To Improve the Health of Kansas Elderly, a Special Program Delivers Nutrition Info Along With Meals. Nutritional information can be helpful to older adults receiving home delivered meals. One provider of this information is Kansas State Research and Extension Nutrition Specialist, Mary Meck Higgins. Higgins said she wants help adults by encouraging them to increase their fluid consumption, increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables, and increase the number of days a week they eat breakfast.
Higgins conducted research on the effects of providing nutrition information to older adults who live in rural areas and who receive home-delivered meals. Higgins said her research team made nutrition information handouts that fit on top of the home-delivered meal boxes. For participants who have trouble seeing, Higgins provided the information on audiocassette tapes. Higgins said the small study looked at 22 women over the age of 60 who live alone and receive home-delivered meals. She said women were chosen because they typically live longer than men do, and represent the majority of the older population. "Twenty-eight percent of people getting the home-delivered meals would not be able to stay in their home without these meals," she added. Some factors that contribute to older adults not getting nutritionally balanced meals without help include their physical inability to prepare the meals or to go to the grocery store, said Higgins. These adults may not have enough money to buy food. Finally, she said, older adults may have trouble eating because they have problems with their teeth or mouth. In her findings, Higgins said that 70 percent of the women participants indicated they had made or intended to start making specific dietary changes toward the recommended nutrition practices or were already following healthy nutrition behaviors. Higgins said one woman's response was, "I've started to keep a water bottle next to my chair and plan to keep doing that." Higgins said the most significant dietary improvement among participants was in the amount of fluids consumed. She said that before her research, only 36 percent of the women drank six or more glasses of water a day. After the women got the nutrition information, 50 percent were drinking six or more glasses of water per day. Higgins said the number of older adults who ate fewer than two fruits and vegetables per day remained unchanged after the project was completed. The last area that Higgins researched was the number of women who ate at least one food for breakfast. She said that 20 women ate breakfast and two did not, both before and after receiving the information. Higgins said she did this research in collaboration with USDA, The National Policy and Resource Center on Nutrition and Aging, and the Kansas North Central-Flint Hills Area Agency on Aging, Inc. Project costs were $4,000 for providing the nutrition information, travel expenses and postage. If she gets additional funding, Higgins plans to expand the project to a larger test group. For more information on health and nutrition, call your local Extension office or visit the web site http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/humannutrition/
Story prepared by Rachel Hogan
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