About half of the adults aged 65 and older in the United States may be malnourished, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and Meals on Wheels America. With the country’s older adult population on the rise—and projected to hit nearly 90 million by 2040—addressing malnutrition problems in the group is crucial.
Currently, about 1.5 million of the country’s older adults obtain about half of their daily food intake through meal programs located at centers run by councils on aging. Now, the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts has partnered with the Massachusetts Councils on Aging, along with the National Institutes of Health and nutrition education nonprofit FamilyCook Productions, to launch a pilot meal program aimed at decreasing older-adult malnutrition.
Called LUNCH, which stands for Launching Updated Nutrition Choices for Health, the program is designed to improve the nutrition quality, taste, ease of preparation, and cost effectiveness of meals offered at councils on aging and their centers for elders.
Pending approval from funding agencies, the pilot will add new recipes to the menus offered by two centers—and it will survey older adults at the centers to find out how they feel about the meals being offered, what kinds of social networks and supports they have, and how food insecure their households are.
In addition, the program will collect anthropometric and clinical data on about 30 subjects three times: on the launch date, three months later, and three months after that. Data collected will include body weight, body mass index, waist circumference, blood pressure, and blood samples.
Tara Hammes, registered dietician and healthy aging manager at the Massachusetts Councils on Aging, said that the goal for teaming up with the HNRCA is to decrease older adult nutrition while providing tasty foods that are convenient for different kinds of centers to serve—including, for example, centers that have on-site kitchens and ones that get food delivered from elsewhere.
“Our collaboration with the HNRCA is important because the HNRCA brings to the Councils on Aging deep research expertise, and we bring a deep understanding of the population and the centers that serve them,” added Tammes. “We might be able to show, along with our other partners, that older adults who attend a meal site that has healthier options benefit not only with a reduction in malnutrition but also with improvements to overall health.”
After the pilot study, the aim is to perform a larger study at more centers and eventually launch a full-scale study that assesses the effects of culinary nutrition interventions over a period of five years.
“There’s always room for improvement around meals,” Hammes added, “and hopefully the improvements we’re making can show improvements in one’s health as well.”