NIHSeniorHealth Offers Tips on Eating Well
as You Get Older
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 one’s
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 http://nihseniorhealth.gov/eatingwellasyougetolder/toc.html 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. |