This study was conducted to identify food consumption patterns of the elderly and to determine factors affecting them to provide basic data for dietary improvement of the elderly. Data from a total of 1,172 elderly subjects (all over 65 years old) fro...
This study was conducted to identify food consumption patterns of the elderly and to determine factors affecting them to provide basic data for dietary improvement of the elderly. Data from a total of 1,172 elderly subjects (all over 65 years old) from the fifth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES Ⅴ-1) were used for analysis, and the results were as follows: As results of validity and reliability analyses of food consumption frequency measure, 7 factors were extracted and each factor was named as 'fruits', 'foods for Korean style meal', 'alcohols', 'instant foods', 'carbohydrate snacks', 'vegetables' and 'legumes and mixed grains', respectively. Food consumption patterns were classified into four groups according to the food consumption frequency using cluster analysis. Cluster 4 showed significantly higher food consumption frequency and cluster 3 tended to be higher in overall food consumption frequency, whereas alcohol consumption frequency was lower than other clusters. Cluster 2 was characterized by generally low food consumption frequency but alcohol consumption frequency was significantly higher. Cluster 1 showed generally low food consumption frequency, however, the consumption frequency of 'legumes and mixed grains' was higher than cluster 2. Overall, even though there were differences between sub-groups, the female subjects had higher consumption frequencies of 'fruits (p<0.001)' and 'legumes and mixed grains (p<0.05)', and low 'alcohols (p<0.001)' consumption frequency. Although food consumption frequency of the rural elderly was lower than the urban elderly, the rural elderly who ate out sometimes, and had meals with family, showed higher food consumption frequency of the 'fruits' and 'legumes and mixed grains'. In conclusion, the food consumption pattern of the elderly was affected by variables such as gender, age, town, economic status, education level, family type, and eating out frequency. It is considered that proper nutrition education should be conducted to cope with nutrition problems for each elderly segmentation.