Senior Health

Eat to Live

Proper nutrition throughout life, including middle and late life, is an important means of maintaining good health and minimizing decline in later years. Nutrition is a cornerstone of prevention. A diet containing the required nutrients-vitamins, minerals, protein, carbohydrates, fats and water-goes a long way towards helping us remain active and productive well into our later years.

Nutrients are essential to life. Nutrients are required throughout the life span for growth and development, as well as for the prevention of infection and disease. Nutrients fuel the body. Everyone has varying nutritional needs from time to time-while recuperating from an illness and, indeed, as we grow older. Therefore, it is important for us from time to time to stop and examine our pattern of eating. We need to ask, "Am I eating to live," or "Am I eating just to eat?"

Keep in mind that, as we grow older, fewer calories are required to stay at our ideal weight. For example, at 60 years of age, if you eat the same number of calories as you did when you were 50 years old, you will more than likely gain weight. It then becomes a challenge for you to maintain your ideal weight while keeping your body and mind running efficiently. While there is still much to learn about our nutritional needs as we grow older, we do know that we need the same nutrients we needed when we were younger.

We also know that many people pay for their improper eating habits with their lives. Changing bad eating habits, just as quitting the smoking habit, can have a positive effect at any age.

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Last Reviewed: May 01, 2001

Elizabeth Joyner Gothelf, BSN, MAG
Assistant Director
Department of Family Medicine
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati