Special Nutritional Needs For The Elderly

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 pointers below are valid for every phase of your life from being a young adult up, but they are particularly vital for older individuals.

It is vital to remain hydrated. Most people do not drink enough water, but older individuals tend to have less water in their bodies than younger ones and this needs to be replaced. It is generally recommended that people drink eight 250 cc beakers (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 every 10 kilos or 22 pounds.

Protein is important to older individuals and as they are normally less lively than younger people, they do not require so much carbohydrate. Therefore, it is better to become selective with your foodstuffs, eat less bread, rice, potato and sugars, but eat a bit more lean meat, eggs, cheese and particularly fish.

If you are going to consume carbohydrates, be certain to eat the wholemeal, whole grain, unprocessed versions of rice, bread and pasta. This is to increase dietary fibre. A great deal of older individuals 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 fantastic for raising dietary fibre.

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

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

Calcium is extremely important particularly 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 good for adults. You can get it from meat, cheese and broccoli amongst other sources.

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

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.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a number of subjects, and is now concerned with omega 3 arthritis. If you want to know more, please go to our site at Omega 6 9