Monday 19 March 2012

Special Nutritional Needs For The Elderly

By Owen Jones


It is always important to eat healthily, but the two stages that it is most vital are almost certainly your formative years and your declining years. In the start, you have to build your body to put it on a decent footing for the remainder of your life and in your later years, parts do not work as well as they used to, so it is better to give them decent quality materials to work with.

So the tips below are valid for every stage of your life from being a young adult up, but they are especially vital for older people.

It is vital to stay hydrated. Most people do not drink enough water, but older individuals tend to have less water in their bodies than younger ones and this has to be replaced. It is by and large recommended that people drink eight 250 cc glasses (a tumbler) of water (two litres) a day, but if you would like to be more accurate the ratio is 25 cc's per kilo, so a 250 cc glass for each 10 kilos or 22 pounds.

Protein is vital to older individuals and as they are usually less lively than younger individuals, they do not require so much carbohydrate. Therefore, it is better to be selective with your foods, eat less bread, rice, potato and sugars, but eat a bit more lean meat, eggs, cheese and especially fish.

If you are going to consume carbohydrates, be careful to eat the wholemeal, whole grain, unprocessed versions of rice, bread and pasta. This is to increase dietary fibre. A lot of older people suffer from constipation because they are less active and increasing fibre and roughage will help counteract this. Green leaf vegetables, all vegetables and fruit are great for increasing dietary fibre.

Cut down on fat and oil. You require some fat and oil, but it is not difficult to get enough to lubricate yourself and the consumption of the correct amount of fibre, roughage and water will avert constipation.

Iron is vital for healthy blood, so find out how much you require per day (RDA - recommended daily amount) and make certain that you get it either from red meat, cereals or supplements. The same goes for zinc which is not easily absorbed.

Calcium is extremely important especially for women. Osteoporosis is very common. Osteoporosis is a calcium lack which results in brittle bones. Most individuals merely think of milk whilst they think of calcium, but milk is not digestible for adults. You can acquire it from meat, cheese and broccoli amongst other sources.

The B group of vitamins is also important for your blood and immune system. Many older people have a deficiency of Vitamin B12. This is a complicated condition and necessitates a physician's advice, but it is common.

Next time you have to have a check up, look to see if they are checking your body's level of vitamin B12 and if it is not in the list of tests, ask for it to be included.




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