A brief guide to ageing and food

This appendix offers the reader a quick overview of some of the key issues concerning ageing and food. Good food is essential for our physical and mental well-being, but our individual approach to food and eating is influenced by a wide number of factors. These can be understood at three interdependent levels, namely:-

i. Micro level (personal characteristics): While we all need money to buy good food (or grow food), there are other things that influence our food choices, such as our dietary or health needs, our religion and culture, as well as our childhood and familiar or family foods and our experience of food education. In addition a person’s household income, location and mobility all influence their access to good food.

ii. Mezzo-level (structural characteristics): This relates to the organisational structure of the food industries (e.g. supermarkets, agro-industry, factory farming etc.) and how these impact upon food. All of these issues impact upon older people, as their diets are influenced by the availability of local food, access to shops and transport, and the cost of food in the shops.

iii. Macro level (national and global economy): All of our food consumption is influenced by governmental policies and global food markets (with transnational companies controlling most of the food markets in the world). The macro politics of food impacts upon not only on the kinds of foods available to us but also the cost of those foods and the impact of agricultural and trading policies on local people and the environment.

While these three levels of food politics are interlinked, this chapter will only look at the impact of food on older people at the micro level (i.e. at the personal level), as that is the level where most professionals are able to bring about any impact or change. However, it may be useful to understand some of the broader political and structural boundaries of our access to food and so a short reading list is also provided at the end of this appendix.