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Promoting nutrition in the community

To successfully promote nutrition in the community it is important to emphasise the age and gender related differences to nutritional needs.

When reviewing strategies to promote nutrition for older adults in the community or in home care it would be useful to consider: 

  • Age and gender differences – As adults age, there is an increased need for protein, fibre and calcium intake compared to younger or middle-aged adults, to prevent health conditions such as loss of muscle mass, constipation as digestion slows and osteoporosis, especially in women. [1] 
  • Promotion strategies – Approaches such as suggested shopping lists, recipe books specifically for older adults and cooking tutorials are effective ways to increase independence in the kitchen and older adult’s engagement with nutrition. 

The resources below might be useful if you are looking to promote nutrition for older adults in the community:

Quality Standards

The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission are currently consulting on draft guidance resources to help providers, aged care workers and other stakeholders to understand the new strengthened Quality Standards and their roles and responsibilities in meeting them. Along with the new Aged Care Act, the strengthened Quality Standards are expected to be introduced from 1 July 2024.

For more information:

Draft Provider Guidance Standard 6 – Food and Nutrition
https://www.agedcarequality.gov.au/resource-library/draft-provider-guidance-standard-6

Want to know more?

If you require more information on implementing an approach to delivering tasty, safe and nutritious meals in aged care: 

  1. Browse the nutrition resources.
  2. Look for research evidence within the PubMed database by using one of the PubMed searches provided here. PubMed contains brief information (‘citations’) on millions of research studies. It can therefore be challenging to search. Our librarian has made finding highly relevant information on this topic as simple as a click of a button. Click on All to see everything in the database on the topic or choose Full text to view only articles immediately available to you free of charge in full text. 

Connect to PubMed evidence

If you wish to find out more about nutrition in aged care, try using one of the PubMed searches below. These links (all or free) take you to the relevant research literature in the large international PubMed database.

  1. Eating well, a nutrition resource for older people and their carers [Internet]. Gosford, AU: New South Wales Government Central Coast Local Health District; 2018 [cited 2024 February 02]. Available from: https://www.cclhd.health.nsw.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/EatingWellBrochure.pdf
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