Is there an association between food patterns and life satisfaction among Norway's inhabitants ages 65 years and older?

Abstract

The lack of information regarding older adults' health and lifestyles makes it difficult to design suitable interventions for people at risk of developing unhealth lifestyles. Therefore, there is a need to increase knowledge about older adults' food patterns and quality of life. Our aim was to determine associations among food patterns, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction in Norwegian inhabitants ages 65+. The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (The HUNT Study) is a large, population-based cohort study that includes data for 125 000 Norwegian participants. The cohort used for this study is wave three of the study, consisting of 11 619 participants age 65 and over. Cluster analysis was used to categorize the participants based on similarities in food consumption; two clusters were identified based on similarities regarding food consumption among participants. Significant differences between the clusters were found, as participants in the healthy food-patterns cluster had higher life satisfaction and lower anxiety and depression than those in the unhealthy food-patterns cluster. The associations among food patterns, anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction among older adults show the need for increased focus on interactions among food patterns, food consumption, and life satisfaction among the elderly in order to explore how society can influence these patterns.

Challenges of Ageing in Portugal: Data from the EpiDoC Cohort

“…These findings are similar to those of other European countries. 39,41 Our results showed that several unhealthy lifestyle behaviours appear to be more common in some regions of the Portugal (especially Azores and Madeira), suggesting that a combination of these modifiable risk factors might be present within specific groups of the population. Although we performed simple descriptive analysis in the current study, previous data including Portuguese adults of all ages suggested that some unhealthy lifestyle behaviours appear to be clustered in the same population groups.…”

“…Indeed, among the Norwegian population, a high proportion of participants reported 30 minutes or more of daily physical activity, with women achieving this level of activity more commonly than men (38.7% of women vs 33% of men). 41 The SENECA study showed significant variations in levels of physical activity among older adults across countries, ranging from 4% to 32%, with southern European countries having the lowest levels of activity. 39 Regarding dietary habits, a high proportion of Portuguese older adults reported daily intake of fruit and vegetables; however, the majority had inadequate water intake.…”

Psychological distress in elderly people is associated with diet, wellbeing, health status, social support and physical functioning- a HUNT3 study

“…Then, we standardized these continuous food variables before running the K-means cluster analysis to make sure that food groups did not influence the clusters with specific frequency [31]. The result from the K-means cluster analyses resulted in two different diet patterns (healthy and unhealthy) which are already published [13]. We created the variable cohabitating by recoding elderly’s living situation into a dummy variable.…”

“…depressive symptoms) are associated with frailty. A healthy diet includes food types like fruits, vegetables, fish, whole-grain bread and water [13]. Thus, healthy diets also consist of food variety, enabling food components to be met adequately and comprehensively [14].…”

“…Thus, healthy diets also consist of food variety, enabling food components to be met adequately and comprehensively [14]. Several publications have revealed that healthy diets are associated with better quality of life [13, 15, 16]. For instance, studies have shown that individuals with a higher score for adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet [17, 18] and higher consumption of low-fat milk and yogurt [19] have lower odds of developing frailty, while a variety and quality of diets in older people [20] is increased by factors, such as social resources, money and help from friends and neighbors.…”