The Association between Family Mealtime and Depression in Elderly Koreans

Abstract

BackgroundSeveral studies have revealed the frequency of family mealtimes to be inversely associated with depressive symptoms in adolescents. However, there have been few studies in older populations. This cross-sectional study investigated the association between family mealtime frequency and depressive symptoms in elderly Koreans.MethodsThis study analyzed 4,959 elderly men and women (aged 65 years or older) who participated in the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Self-administered questionnaires were used to assess depressive status, family mealtime frequency, and covariates. Multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association using the eating alone group as a reference.ResultsAfter adjusting for all covariates, participants who had family meals 3 times a day had fewer depressive symptoms than the eating alone group; adjusted odds ratios (ORs) (95% confidence intervals [CIs]) were 0.72 (0.58– 0.89) for point depressiveness/anxiety and 0.73 (0.56–0.94) for depressiveness lasting for at least 2 weeks. In suicidal ideation, the OR (95% CI) of eating with family twice a day was significant after full adjusting for covariates at 0.67 (0.50–0.88).ConclusionFamily mealtimes were closely associated with depressive symptoms in elderly Koreans, which suggests that maintaining intrafamilial bonding is important for mental health in an older population.

Association between commensality with depression and suicidal ideation of Korean adults: the sixth and seventh Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2013, 2015, 2017

“…Increased pressure in the academic, marriage, and employment realms has forced young adults to delay getting married and live alone for a longer period, which causes them to have individualistic values and decreases their social exchanges with others [37]. This study also demonstrated that lower socioeconomic levels [24,35,38,39], including lower income levels and education attainment, and poorer physical health, such as the present of a chronic disease [40] or smoking [14], have a higher association between eating alone and depression and suicidal ideation.…”

“…Chronic illness, smoking status, and drinking status were also included. Covariates were re-categorized based on previous research [12,14,20,24,26] . Non-drinker group was analyzed as a reference, due to the nature of the questionnaires, to distinguish among non-drinker, drink less than once a month and drink once a month based on our previous study [27].…”

“…Additionally, some of them involuntarily spend lunchtime and dinnertime alone; the lack of mealrelated social activities narrows their relationships and appears to generate depressive feelings [23]. Other studies in Korea likewise found that people who ate lunch or dinner alone were more depressed than those who ate commensally; these associations even stronger when eating alone was involuntary (caused by external situations) [8,9,11,24]. Therefore, in this study, we examined recent data from South Korea to determine whether the association between commensality and mental health differs among subgroups and is affected by socioeconomic factors such as age, household size, geographic regions, and household income level.…”

Gender and age group differences in nutrition intake and dietary quality of Korean adults eating alone: based on Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey Data, 2013–2016

“…This study evaluated nutrient intake and dietary quality of people who eat alone and investigated the differences in those factors by gender and age. It has been shown that older adults and one-person households tend to eat alone [ 5 6 ], and the rate of eating alone in women is about twice that of men [ 5 ]. The same demographic characteristics of solo eaters were observed in our study.…”

“…The number of one-person households increased from 2.22 million (15.5% of the Korean population) in 2000 to 5.62 million (28.6% of the population) in 2017 [ 4 ]. One of 4 elderly Koreans aged 65 years old or above were reported to have eaten alone during the last year [ 5 ]; moreover, one-person households were more likely than multi-person households to eat alone [ 6 7 ]. Consequently, the number of ‘solo eaters’ is expected to increase in concert with the demographic changes.…”