Assessment of nutritional status among elderly population in a rural area of West Bengal, India

Abstract

Background: Geriatric population is a potentially vulnerable group for malnutrition as per 2002 census of the World Health Organization. Objectives: To estimate the prevalence of malnutrition and risk of malnutrition among elderly population in Arkhali village,

Nutritional status of elders in Galle district, Sri Lanka

“…Results of this research indicate that about 31% of elders in the sample were at risk of malnutrition. This finding is somewhat low compared to the observed findings in the region; in an Indian study the rate was 60.4% and in an Iranian study conducted on the elderly living in nursing homes the rate was 38.7% (12,13). Further, no gender difference in the rate of malnutrition was observed in our study although many studies conducted on nutritional status of elders in South Asia had shown gender differences of nutritional status in the elderly (12)(13)(14).…”

Nutritional status of elderly in rural areas of Haldwani, Nainital district of Uttarakhand

“…Similar finding was reported by Lahiri S et al whereas in studies done by Mohapatra SC et al, Mishra CP et al, Shankar R et al, Kritika et al, Chauhan P et al and Kumar R et al most of the elderly belongs to low socioeconomic status. 5,7,11,12,14,17,18 In present study, 48.64% of elderly were vegetarian while 51.36% were non vegetarian.…”

“…Mohapatra SC et al, Mishra CP et al, Kritika et al, Narapureddy B et al, Kumar R et al and Lahiri S et al confirmed the same. 5,7,12,13,[17][18][19] Most (92.5%) of the elderly lives in a joint family and similar observation were made by Mishra CP et al and Shankar R et al while Tirkey K et al and Kumar R et al found mostly elderly were living in nuclear families. 7,11,15,17 Majority of the elderly were illiterates (60%) in present study.…”

“…The other researchers confirmed the similar finding whereas Shankar R et al, Narapureddy B et al, Kumar R et al and Lahiri S et al found in their studies that number of males were more than that of females. [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][16][17][18] The marital status of the elderly shows that 59.77% were married and 40.23% were widowed. This finding was comparable to that of a report published by United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA), where about 60% of the elderly were currently married and 38% widowed.…”

“…Similar observation was made in the studies conducted by various researchers while Lahiri S et al found only 7.7% of the elderly as illiterate in her study. [5][6][7][8][11][12][13][14][15]17,18 It was found that about 78.64% were not working. Similar finding was observed by Mishra CP et al and Kritika et al 7,12 Majority of the elderly belonged to class III (59.09%) in the present study.…”