Odor perception plays an important role in nutrition. In the present study, the effect of aging and health status on detection of food odors is shown and interrelations with nutritional status are explored. We have tested 26 healthy young (20-25 yrs) and 23 elderly (61-74 yrs) subjects who were screened according to the SENIEUR protocol. Anthropometric measures and blood samples provided 20 parameters of nutritional status. A validated measurement procedure under forced choice conditions was used to quantify the detection thresholds of two food odors of which one had a trigeminal effect and the other mainly had an olfactory effect. There is a significant declining sensitivity for both odors. Our observations indicate that a relation between nutrition and odor perception in the elderly population exists. Whether olfactory deficits cause or are caused by increased nutritional risk deserves further study.

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Prior to the creation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, federal legislation primarily positioned mothers in the private sphere of parenting and men in the public sphere of work. Welfare reform changed this citizenship construction dramatically, requiring mothers to work but failing to acknowledge their caretaking responsibilities. This article presents a discourse and content analysis of the welfare reform debate that directly referenced citizenship. Findings suggest that legislators emphasized paid work as a citizenship activity while rarely portraying parenting as such. Furthermore, legislators' endorsement of paid work as a duty of citizenship, and the manner in which they paired this endorsement with the minimizing of parenting as such a duty, may have further diminished the perception of parenting as a valuable citizenship activity. Welfare reform may have been possible because the heretofore recognized citizenship work of mothering was largely ignored in the congressional debate.

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