How To Ensure Older Loved Ones Eat Well

There are many things to worry about as our loved ones get older, especially if they want to stay in their own homes (as many people will) and you’re not able to be with them all the time. You’ll worry about their health, their mobility, and their overall well-being and happiness, and you might even worry about whether or not they’re eating – that can be a major issue that you don’t realize is a problem until you find it is!

The good news is there are some measures you can put in place to ensure your older loved ones eat well, which means they’ll be healthier in general. Read on to find out what some of those measures are. 

Photo by Askar Abayev

Home Care

If you’re not able to visit your loved one every day because you have a lot of work, you have a family to take care of, you live far away, and so on, then it can be hard to know whether or not they’re eating and how well they’re eating if they are. 

That’s where home care can be useful. When you arrange for a nurse to visit your loved one at home, they’ll be able to check them over and determine whether or not they’re eating as they should. Although the nurses won’t be able to make anyone eat, you can get a full report and then take other steps if you need to or have peace of mind if they do happen to be eating well. Plus, the home care will ensure everything else is fine too, so there won’t be anything to worry about.  

Eat With Them

If your older loved one isn’t eating properly (and potentially getting sick because of it), you could try to eat with them more often. That’s not going to be possible for everyone, especially if you don’t live close by, but if you can eat with them at least one or two days a week, you can ensure that they’re getting enough to eat and that the food is healthy – you could even bring it yourself. If you can’t physically be with them, you could try video calling when you eat – even if you’re not in the same room, you can still have a meal together in some form. 

In fact, as well as eating with them (which doesn’t just mean they’ll actually eat, but is also a wonderful thing to do to keep them company because loneliness is a big issue in later life and can cause illness), why not provide them with food? As we’ve said, you can bring the meal you’ll eat together, but you can also bring more food that can be frozen and then reheated as needed – if they’re unable to cook or don’t like to when it’s just them, this could make a huge difference. 

Organize A Food Delivery Service

There are many different food delivery services available these days, and you can choose whether you want the food delivered ready to eat (you’ll just need to warm it up) or whether you want to be sent all the ingredients to make it yourself. 

That means there’s sure to be a food delivery service that will suit what your older loved one wants. Perhaps they can’t get to the store very easily, but they love to cook – being sent ingredients would be ideal. Perhaps they’re not keen on cooking, so they’re not eating; in that case, full meals would work out perfectly. You can arrange it online and be sure they’re getting wholesome, tasty food every day. 

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