Food Goes Better With Friends
 Research Suggests Companionship Is a Key Factor in Nutrition for Seniors

By Lawrence Lindner, The Washington Post 

July 18, 2000

"I really appreciate this project," Charles Lee said. "I speak from my heart."

The 73-year-old Lee, who came to the United States from China in February 1949, "before the Communists got into my home town," was talking about the nutrition program at the Asian Senior Center, which is run from the basement of St. Mary's Church in Northwest Washington. But he was also talking about much more.

Yes, he was happy that the hot meal he receives there five days a week has "less fat, less this, less that. Not too much sugar." But while he acknowledged that "the food is essential," what really counts to him are "the people gathering together."

"I'm lonely by myself in my apartment," Lee, a widower, explained. "The company [here] brings up your spirit. You sit and talk. That's something money can't buy."

It's no mystery that Lee talked about companionship when he was asked about nutritious dining. The two are inextricably interwoven. Indeed, while many older people deal with a lot of circumstances that make it difficult to eat well--physical limitations that make it hard to shop and cook, teeth and denture problems that complicate chewing, diminished senses of taste and smell that accompany aging--there perhaps is no greater deterrent to eating well than having to sit down to meals alone. That's particularly true for people who have lost a loved one. They simply may not have the heart to prepare wholesome repasts that will be eaten while they stare at the four walls.

As Jean Lloyd, the nutritionist with the U.S. Administration on Aging, puts it, "we eat better in groups, whether it's with one other person or more than one."

Research supports her contention. A University of California, Berkeley, study of 4,400 adults found several years ago that men 55 and older were more likely to eat a poor quality diet if they lived alone than if they were married. Their meals and snacks were providing less than two-thirds of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for at least five nutrients--generally vitamin A, vitamin B6, vitamin C, calcium and magnesium.

Before you chalk that up to men's not knowing how to cook, consider that single women in the same age group fared at least as poorly, racking up a significant shortfall in vitamin B6, calcium, magnesium, thiamine and riboflavin.

It's not that older people who lived alone chose food that was less nutritious than foods chosen by those who lived with a spouse. They simply were eating less of it, missing meals more often.

Similar findings surfaced in a look at several dozen senior citizens in Tennessee--there was a definite relationship between loneliness and lowered nutrient intake. Our very language makes the connection. The word "companion," which connotes friendship, warmth and security, stems from French and Latin terms that mean "one who eats bread with another."

Unfortunately, loneliness only paves the way for even more emotional barriers to good eating, notes Jeanette C. Takamura, assistant secretary for aging at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "If you're totally alone," she says, "you begin to feel you don't count. Why bother to stay healthy? But once you have social contact," she explains, you feel "connected to the external community." Your "existence makes a difference," and there's "a reason to get up in the morning."

It is for that reason that Takamura is so committed to the Administration on Aging's congregate nutrition programs offered at more than 4,000 local facilities throughout the country--at senior citizen centers, in church basements, in restaurants, in schools. While the programs are targeted in large part to those in greatest economic need, they are open to all people 60 and older.

Along with a hot meal five days a week, many of the centers also offer physical activity programs, lectures, field trips, transportation to and from the meal sites, grocery shopping assistance and home delivery of meals for those who are not well enough to leave their houses or apartments on a frequent basis. That is, they provide "validation that comes from social contact," explains Takamura.

And they are very often geared to the needs of the community they serve. For instance, at the Asian Center in the District, which has "mostly Chinese people," according to counseling coordinator Willie Wong, participants get a Chinese meal two days a week. It contains tofu and vegetables, says Paulette Helman, public health nutritionist for the District's Office on Aging, which oversees 60 nutrition sites.

At the Spanish Senior Center in the Mount Pleasant/Adams Morgan area, which goes under the name EOFULA (Educational Organization for United Latin Americans), patrons get rice and beans sometimes, reports executive director Ana Neris. And at the Behrend-Adas Senior Fellowship Program at Adas Israel synagogue, participants eat kosher meals five days a week, sometimes lunching on bagels and lox (smoked salmon), according to director Mariana Griff.

It's like that in programs throughout the country, says the Administration on Aging's Lloyd. "An urban black population in D.C. might not be far away from a community in rural Maryland, but they eat differently."

And "not only do we take care of their stomachs," says Griff, "we also take care of their heads. . . . They get fellowship, they get great friendships, they get smiles, they get a meal." Comments Muriel Levin, a Behrend-Adas volunteer who is 68 herself, "people say they don't know what they'd do without the program. And they say it frequently."

Neris, too, speaks of nourishment for the soul as well as for the body. "A lot of the people suffer from complete isolation," she explains. "They would not be able to survive without the center."

Part of it, says Assistant Secretary Takamura, is that the people who come to the centers sit around and reminisce. It "reminds them that they made contributions," she explains, that their lives are worthy. And that, in turn, makes eating well and staying healthy more of a priority.

Charles Lee, however, was in no mood for reminiscing. While polite during a recent telephone interview, he clearly wanted to get back to his friends. After patiently explaining about coming to this country more than 50 years ago, after talking about his wife, he asked, "You finished with me? I'll go down now. I'm watching Wimbledon."

RESOURCE

To locate a nutrition program at a congregate meal site anywhere in the country for yourself or a loved one 60 or older, call the Administration on Aging's toll-free Eldercare Locator phone number: 1-800-677-1116. Financial contributions from participants are voluntary.

Eating Right columnist Lawrence Lindner is executive editor of the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Letter.