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:

• Meals on Wheels Response to Department of Health and Aged Care in-home aged care discussion paper
• Eating well – Nutrition resource for older people and their carers providing a brief overview of considerations when preparing meals 
• Meals on Wheels collection of resources, recipes and reports to support the independence and connection of vulnerable members of 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The Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission are currently consulting on draft guidance resources to help providers, aged care workers and other stakeholders to understand the new strengthened Quality Standards and their roles and responsibilities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.