The nutritional needs of individuals change with lifestyle and over time. As children reach maturity and adulthood they no longer require nutrition for growth. Instead food and nutrition is needed to replace expended energy and to provide sufficient protein, fat, carbohydrate, vitamins and minerals as well as other essential components to meet the body’s needs. With advancing age the ability to store nutrients declines, as do regulatory and recovery abilities. However, the nutritional requirements of the population aged over 65 years are diverse and are influenced by health, physiological function and susceptibility to disease.
Inappropriate food intake, chronic disease and functional impairment place a substantial number of older Irish people at high risk of malnutrition. Unrecognised or untreated malnutrition, including both over- and under-nutrition, can lead to disability, reduce the quality of life, increase morbidity and the need for health
care and social services, and can contribute towards premature institutionalisation and early mortality.
This report on "Recommendations for a national food and nutrition policy for older people" provides information on the status of nutrition in our older population and on the common risk factors affecting this status. It relates nutrition to diseases and conditions experienced in the older population and outlines
the benefits of adequate diet.
In order to be of practical use to health professionals and those caring for older people, the report sets out nutritional requirements and dietary guidelines as well as highlighting barriers that impede proper eating patterns.
A number of recommendations aimed at improving the
nutritional status of our older population are
made. Amongst these is a recommendation for the
implementation of "Adding Years to Life and Life to
Years:A Health Promotion Strategy for Older People"published in 1998 by the National Council on Ageing and Older People and the Department of Health and Children.
The interaction of adequate diet and healthy lifestyle has a strong influence on the wellbeing of this sector of society. Older people constitute a significant and growing proportion of the Irish population. In 1996, 413,882 people (11.4%) were over the age of 65. By 2011 the percentage is expected to increase to 14%.
Consequently, the growth in the older population, articularly in the group 85 years and over, has farreaching
implications for nutritional policy.
Implementation of this policy can enable better health and will demonstrate that society values its older members.
