When you water a plant, you give it whatever water it needs. You don’t give it extra just on a whim. It should work the same with humans and food. But food for many is a tool for regulating their mood. Food as anything other than a source of nutrition transforms it from a requirement of life into a source of danger.
Jennifer is a nutritionist who specializes in working with people in their late fifties and older. “I see a lot of people who never really gave food a second thought. If they liked it, they ate it. If they didn’t like it, they stayed away,” she says. “Then they get to a point where they are concerned about their health or wish to get into better shape, and for the first time they consider how big a decision they have made by never deciding to eat right.”
Jennifer says that although everybody would benefit from eating right, bad eating habits are a more serious concern for older people than for younger people: “As we age into our forties, fifties, and above, we lose bone density and our metabolism decreases. Thismeans that what our body needs to thrive changes significantly as we get older.”
Jennifer tells her clients that one of the more valuable things they can do is change how they eat. “People over age fifty should consider throwing out the idea of big sit-down meals and instead think about eating smaller meals more frequently throughout the day,”
she says. “Small portions throughout the day help us to maintain our energy level—instead of having it plunge and peak around our big meals. This also helps because making better use of the food energy we create means we burn more calories.”
As for what to eat, Jennifer again emphasizes meeting the body’s needs. “To keep their bones healthy, people should make sure they are getting the recommended daily dose of calcium and vitamin D,” she advises, “and they should moderate their consumption of caffeine and soda. Drinking more water is an excellent alternative.
“The most important thing is for people to be aware of what they are doing and what they could be doing. A lot of folks don’t mind making more healthy decisions if they know what they should be doing and why.” People with low life satisfaction were four times more likely to develop a habit of continuing to eat once their hunger was gone to compensate for depression.