Preventing Sarcopenia for the Elderly - Three Good Ways and One Tip: Eat Healthy, Supplement Calcium and Protein

If the elderly want to live a happy life, they must eat healthily and enjoy activities. If they eat unhealthily and do not get enough nutrition, they are prone to sarcopenia, which will affect their mobility. In view of this, the Taipei City Health Bureau has specially targeted the health of the elderly and promoted a healthy and balanced diet of "being able to eat", "eating enough", "eating right" and "eating smartly", and provided guidance on supplementing high calcium and high-quality protein so that the elderly can enjoy life.

Healthy food for seniors: three good and one trick to eat healthy

Taiwan has entered an aging society in 2018. The health of the elderly is a cause for concern, especially physical weakness and lack of muscle strength. Causes of frailty include low activity, insufficient nutritional intake, and sarcopenia. According to the accident statistics of Taipei City's elderly aged 65 and above from 2008 to 2016, falls ranked first. Related studies have shown that insufficient nutritional intake is one of the causes of frailty, sarcopenia, and falls.

In addition, according to the survey results of the National Health Administration of the Ministry of Health and Welfare from 2013 to 2016, the intake of six major food categories by the elderly was unbalanced, especially milk (81.6%) and fruit (72.9%), which ranked the top two in terms of insufficient intake. The rates of insufficient intake of calcium and vitamin D among the five major nutrients were as high as 76.3% and 60% respectively. Among them, frail elderly people obviously do not like to drink dairy products as a source of protein. All these are related to the frailty of the elderly.

Elderly people can delay frailty by consuming more high-quality protein

In order to help the elderly eat healthily while building muscle and staying energetic, Taipei City Government Health Bureau Director Huang Shih-chieh said that in 2017, Taipei City took the lead in setting up nutrition and hygiene education demonstration sites in Xinyi District and Wanhua District, combining nutritionists to provide citizens with accessible and convenient nutrition and hygiene education services, and through the "Silver Hair Healthy i Cuisine" series of courses, to enhance the healthy eating knowledge of the elderly. Lead the elders to choose healthy ingredients, prepare high-calcium and high-protein meals, and promote a healthy and balanced diet of "being able to eat", "eating enough", "eating right" and "eating cleverly". Encourage the elders to eat (drink) 2 servings (cups) of milk every day to easily reach the protein intake and achieve the goal of "healthy and good age".

Wanhua District has teamed up with nutritionists to organize a series of "Silver Hair Healthy i Cuisine" courses that combine knowledge and practice, guiding the elderly to prepare healthy meals and design appropriate recipes based on the texture and characteristics of vegetables. After class, the daily diet patterns of the elderly were reviewed and it was found that the proportion of eggs eaten for breakfast increased from 60% to 90%, and there was a significant increase in the choice of plant protein and fish.

【Three Good and One Clever】

Ability to eat: No emphasis is placed on the elderly to control their diet.

Eat enough: Emphasize high-calcium and high-protein ingredients.

Eat right: 2 servings of milk daily.

Eat smartly: eat a balanced diet and get nutrients from multiple sources.

Cathay Hospital nutritionist Zhang Silan said that she hopes that the elderly will develop regular three meals a day, not deliberately lose weight, and adopt the "three good and one clever" eating habits in their daily lives, so as to enhance their physical strength and mobility, delay the occurrence of weakness, disability and chronic diseases, and achieve the goal of "Healthy Ageing and Active 100".