A nutrition survey of the elderly : report by the Panel on Nutrition of the Elderly.

  • Great Britain. Panel on Nutrition of the Elderly
Date:
1972
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: A nutrition survey of the elderly : report by the Panel on Nutrition of the Elderly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    J PLAN OF THE SURVEY CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1.1 Historical 1.1.1. The number of people in Britain aged 65 or over is rapidly increasing both absolutely and in proportion to the rest of the community. The percentages of the elderly in the total population for 1961, 1964 and 1967 were: men, 9-:3%, 9-3%, 9°7% 3 women, 14°1%, 14-4%, 15% respectively. Even if there were no change in the willingness of relatives to care for and feed those who cannot manage for themselves, a growing burden would be imposed upon the com- munity. We need much more up-to-date information about the circumstances of the elderly in order to devise ways and means of caring for those in need efficiently and economically. 1.1.2. The last major survey of the nutrition of the elderly in the U.K. was in Sheffield in 1952 (Bransby and Osborne, 1953). Its main emphasis was on old people living alone or with their spouses, and clinical as well as dietary informa- tion was collected. A smaller survey of 60 old women living alone in two London boroughs was made by the King Edward’s Hospital Fund in 1962 (Exton-Smith and Stanton, 1965). No very clear-cut indication of malnutrition emerged and the popular idea that many old people who live alone exist almost entirely on bread, butter, jam, biscuits and cups of sweetened tea was not substantiated. 1.1.3. In 1967 a Panel on Nutrition of the Elderly, set up by the Committee on Medical Aspects of Food Policy, reported that although overt malnutrition rarely occurred there might be a wider incidence of sub-clinical malnutrition (Department of Health and Social Security, 1970). However, the Panel also stated that “‘evidence is too patchy and unrepresentative to enable a compre- hensive picture to be obtained”’’. 1.1.4. The survey described in this Report took place during the period 1967 to 1968 and was designed to fill in some of the gaps in this evidence. The subjects were elderly people living alone or with spouses, relatives or friends, but outside institutional accommodation, and all were included in the survey irrespective of their state of health. In this and certain other respects it differed from an interesting study made in two areas of Holland (de Wijn, van Staveren, de Groot-Polman, Postmus, Peeters and Wigbout, 1967) which appears to be the
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