Nutrition
Description
Throughout our lifetime, nutrition is one of the greatest determining factors in the ability to lead a happy, healthy, and well-rounded lifestyle. Since nutrition and healthy eating contribute to maintaining sufficient bodily processes and structure, as it provides us with energy, increased cognitive abilities, and protects us from disease/illness; it is that much more important in older age (1). As we age, we begin to change physically, mentally, and psychosocial which all contribute to an older individual's nutrition. This is in respect to one’s willingness to eat, prepare, and buy food or maintain a healthy diet that will keep them strong and vigorous. In these two simulations, we plan to represent, specifically, how both physiological/psychosocial changes related to aging may create a different mindset when it comes to proper nutrition and willingness to eat healthy; or to eat at all. From this, we hope to show the importance of understanding how these simple, everyday tasks, such as eating or preparing food, can become seemingly impossible for older individuals and how that, in turn, can have negative consequences.
Nutrition Simulation #1 BANANA BONANZA
Eating and preparing foods are the most important tasks in a good nutritional regimen and any complications in one’s ability to do either of these can lead to poor health. This can be done by being frustrated and stressed which can lead many older adults to refrain from eating at all. With this simulation, you will put your motor skills to the test and see how difficult it can be to cut, maneuver your food, use utensils, and simply eat if you were affected by musculoskeletal degeneration. It is important to note that cutting up the banana, rather than peeling and eating it directly, is more in tune with older adults' eating habits. Many of them often cut foods into smaller pieces to better chew their foods before swallowing and to avoid choking.
For example, many older adults experience osteoarthritis. This causes pain and stiffness in one’s joints, which makes it more difficult to maneuver utensils and objects on a plate.
Materials
- 1 plate
- 1 fork
- 1 butter knife
- 1 banana (unpeeled)
NOTE: To demonstrate the difficulty further of experiencing musculoskeletal degeneration, you may do the procedure by exchanging the regular utensils with larger ones such as a butcher knife or larger fork.
Procedure
Set Up
- Set up a spot at a table with a plate, 1 fork and 1 butter knife
- Set a full banana (unpeeled) on the plate
Simulation Procedure
- Briefly reflect on the description of the importance of nutrition, how nutrition/dietary needs can change with old age, and understand the purpose of this simulation. You may now get comfortable and sit down at the table with the plate and utensils in front of you.
- To simulate how musculoskeletal changes in aging can create difficulties in eating/preparing food, you are asked to do the following:
- Cut the banana into equal 1-inch pieces using the fork and knife (ensure the knife is in your non-dominant hand), and
- Peel the skin off the banana using the fork and knife, and
- Attempt to eat the banana pieces using the fork
- Follow up with the reflection questions to create a better understanding of how the simulation impacted you, as an ‘older adult’, and whether it changed, or didn’t change, your mindset toward older individuals and aging in general.
Simulation Video
Duration of simulation - 5-10 minutes.
Reflection Questions
- Would you feel more OR less inclined to eat/eat healthy/prepare food if you had to deal with the struggles that were simulated on a regular basis?
- At what point during the simulation did you consider the most influential in whether or not you would want to eat/participate in proper nutrition?
- Although the simulation used utensils, many cultures eat with their hands. Would elderly persons of different cultural backgrounds face more/less/same barriers towards eating as they age?
Nutrition Simulation #2 RICE AND SEEK
This simulation is meant to demonstrate the difficulties of adhering to food intolerances/allergies that accompany aging. An individual must be wary of certain foods and pick out parts of the meals they cannot eat if a restriction is present. Using small and light coloured pieces of food, which will be rice in this scenario, it will be mixed in with a white powdered substance (flour) that makes it difficult to distinguish the two substances from each other. Similar to how an older adult may have trouble being able to see, these changes can be due to age-related vision issues. It can be difficult for some to distinguish between objects such as vegetables in a salad that they cannot eat and have to remove because of food restrictions or allergies that have come with aging.
Nutrition contributes to one’s ability to be at an increased risk for diabetic retinopathy which is an eye condition. The common symptoms are worsening vision, seeing shapes floating or blindness. It may be difficult to see the small pieces of rice and pick out the substance. Thus challenging the individual's ability to eat.
Materials
- 1 plate
- 1 spoon
- 1/3 cup of flour
- 1 tsp of rice
NOTE: To enhance the difficulty and create a better understanding of what it may be like to experience vision changes in aging, you may do this simulation in a dimly lit room.
Procedure
Set Up
- Set up a spot at a table with 1 plate and 1 spoon
- On the plate, create a mixture of ⅓ cup flour and a 1 tsp of rice.
Simulation Procedure
- Use your non-dominant hand for the remainder of this simulation.
- You will now use the spoon to attempt to separate the pieces of rice from the flour on the plate. Keeping in mind how this may impact an older individual psychosocially and psychologically, as you may begin to understand why older adults are less inclined to eat in front of others out of embarrassment or frustration.
- Once you feel that you have either picked out the majority of pieces or have become too frustrated to continue, stop the simulation and allow a moment to breathe and see how well you were able to separate the rice pieces from the flour.
- You have made it to the end of the nutrition simulation! Give yourself a pat on the back and a moment to reflect on how you feel about yourself after the simulation and how that feeling could translate into empathy toward the struggles that older individuals must endure daily.
- Follow up with the reflection questions to create a better understanding of how the simulation impacted you, as an ‘older adult’, and whether it changed, or didn’t change, your mindset toward older individuals and aging in general.
Simulation Video
Duration of simulation - 5-10 minutes.
Reflection Questions
- Prior to this simulation, what was your perspective on how age-related changes can impact nutrition for older adults? Has your mindset changed since the start of the simulation? If yes, then how?
- How would such eating difficulties affect your ability to eat in public or in a social setting?
- Would the difficulty in an older adult's ability to feed themself create damaging self-esteem outcomes for the way in which they are looked at by younger generations or the impact on their own perception of self-worth?
