Nutrient intake and Nutritional status of selected elderly people in Dhaka city

Abstract

In Bangladesh, aging is one of the emerging problems and it has been increasing day by day with improvement of socio-economic situation. Nutritional status changes due to ageing process. The nutritional status is not only dependent on elderly person’s physiological and psychological changes but also dependent on nutrients intakes as well as sanitation and hygienic practices. In Bangladesh there are few studies on elderly people, especially on old home people in Dhaka city. As such this study was undertaken to measure nutrients intakes of selected elderly based on foodstuffs weighting in 24 hour dietary recall using measuring utensils and subsequent calculations using specific software and to assess nutritional status of the elderly people from 3 selected old homes in Dhaka city. This was a cross-sectional study which was conducted on (≥ 60 years) 63 elderly people from 3 selected old homes in Dhaka city to measure their nutrients intake and assess their nutritional status. Exhausted sampling technique was applied to select the sample population and sample size, n=63 [where as males were 32 (51%) & females were 31 (49%)] were taken after the exclusion and inclusion criteria of the study. Face to face interview technique with the respondents by pre-tested semi structured questionnaire was used to collect the information. BMI was calculated to assess the nutritional status of respondents according to 1998 WHO guidelines. Nutrients intake values were calculated by 24 hour dietary recall from the derived weights of consumed foodstuff of respondents according to FCT for Bangladesh. Data were analyzed by using Microsoft excel 2007 and SPSS software program version 20. Appropriate statistical tools were used to analyze the study findings. According to BMI, the results showed that among the entire respondents underweight were 6 (10%) persons, overweight were 24 (38%) persons and obese were 7 (11%) persons; whereas only 26 (41%) elderly persons were normal. Nutrient intakes results showed that among the entire respondents median intake of energy was 1219 Kcal/day and protein was 40 gm/day, whereas median intake of vitamin A was 184 mcg /day, vitamin B1 was 0.43 mg/day and Ca was 443 mg/day. These nutrient intake values were lower compared to percent meeting of RNI. Nutritional status of the respondents were found significantly associated with their total monthly expenditure (p=0.008), milk intake per day (p=0.034), personal liking of food (p=0.007), hand washing before eating (p=0.001) and taking bath every day (p=0.001). Gender and Individual Dietary Diversity Score (IDDS) were not found significantly associated with nutritional status of the elderly respondents. Nutritional status of this study has showed 59% of them were malnourished (underweight, overweight and obese), indicates similar results with Abu SG Faruque et.al study on anthropometric profile of elderly population living in urban Bangladesh having high prevalence of malnutrition among elderly population. Nutrition education and nutrition related intervention programs are essential for the elderly and their caregiver; to improve nutrients intakes to meet adequate nutrients and maintain normal nutritional status of the elderly people.