Senior Citizens Offered Tips on Eating Well as You
Age by National Institutes of Health
Eating well is vital at any age, but as you get
older, your daily food choices can make an important difference in your
health
May 12, 2008 - How should you eat as you get older?
Which foods are likely to keep you most healthy and which ones should
you limit? Is it possible to eat well and stay within a healthy weight?
These and other questions are addressed in "Eating Well as You Get
Older," the latest topic to be added to NIHSeniorHealth, the health and
wellness Web site developed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and
the National Library of Medicine (NLM), both part of the National
Institutes of Health.
"Eating well is vital at any age, but as you get
older, your daily food choices can make an important difference in your
health. Good nutrition is one component of an overall strategy to stay
healthy," says Richard J. Hodes, M.D., director of the NIA, which
developed the content for the topic on NIHSeniorHealth.
Eating a
well-planned, balanced mix of healthy foods every day may help prevent
heart disease, type 2 diabetes, bone loss, some kinds of cancer, and
anemia.
However, eating healthy may not always be easy for
older adults. Changing appetites, slower metabolism, eating alone,
buying ready-to-eat meals, and living on a fixed income can affect the
quality of ones food choices. Yet our need for healthy foods does not
diminish with age. As we age, our bodies still require essential
nutrients to help us maintain function, and most of those nutrients are
found in foods.
"It is important for older adults to select foods
that provide them with the nutrients and energy they need for healthy,
active living," says Dr. Hodes. "NIHSeniorHealth is a valuable source of
information on this important issue." In addition to learning how to
make wise food choices, older adults who visit the site (click
here) will
find information about food labels, food safety, meal planning, food
shopping, and ways to enhance the enjoyment of eating.
One of the fastest growing age groups using the
Internet, older Americans increasingly turn to the Internet for health
information. In fact, 68 percent of online seniors surf for health and
medical information when they go on the Web. NIHSeniorHealth, which is
based on the latest research on cognition and aging, features short,
easy-to-read segments of information that can be accessed in a variety
of formats, including large-print type sizes, open-captioned videos and
even an audio version.
Additional topics coming soon to the site include
Parkinson's disease, complementary and alternative medicine, and
leukemia.
The NIA leads the federal effort supporting and
conducting research on aging and the health and well being of older
people.
The NLM, the world's largest library of the health
sciences, creates and sponsors Web-based health information resources
for the public and professionals.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The
Nation's Medical Research Agency includes 27 Institutes and Centers
and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic,
clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the
causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For
more information about NIH and its programs, visit
www.nih.gov.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
bommers
May 12, 2008 - How should you eat as you get older?
Which foods are likely to keep you most healthy and which ones should
you limit? Is it possible to eat well and stay within a healthy weight?
These and other questions are addressed in "Eating Well as You Get
Older," the latest topic to be added to NIHSeniorHealth, the health and
wellness Web site developed by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and
the National Library of Medicine (NLM), both part of the National
Institutes of Health.