Reducing and Preventing Obesity in Seniors

Whether your elderly parent has dealt with obesity his entire life or if it’s a new condition developing because of his current lifestyle, helping your parent lose weight will have immeasurable health benefits. Often, it’s important to review what lead to obesity before attempting to start the process of reducing it.

Leading Causes of Obesity in Seniors:

Less physically active – As people get older, they are often less active. This can be because of pain associated with physical movement, fatigue, depression or lack of motivation. Your elderly parent may not see the benefits of regular exercise in her life right now since her days of chasing children around or having to take care of more physically demanding chores are now long gone. By not regularly exercising, your parent’s body loses muscle mass and it often gets replaced with fat.

How to help

• Have your parent set up a regularly-scheduled exercise time. Having a routine may encourage her to stick to it and not forget about it. Your elderly care provider can assist by giving your parent a reminder of when it’s time for her workout.
• Find an activity your parent loves. Whether it’s trying a new activity or doing what she’s always loved (like hiking or swimming), your parent is more likely to stick to an activity that brings her happiness as well as physical fitness. If your parent has problems getting to the location of her favorite activity (a local park or beach), your elderly care provider can help with transportation.
• Add strength training to her regimen. While your parent doesn’t need to start bench-pressing large amounts of weight, simple strength training exercises will help her muscles stay strong and burn more calories. Strength training can also help with balance and many other motor skills.

Bad food choices – Often as a person gets older, she finds it more difficult to prepare complete meals. This may result in her relying more on fast food, frozen products, or other less nutritious, high-fat and high-salt alternatives. She may also find she’s eating alone often, so she may not feel inclined to put a lot of work into her meals.

How to help

• Have your elderly care provider or someone you know who is a good cook, prepare freezer meals for you parent that she can have on hand to heat up and eat when she needs a simple but healthy meal for herself.
• Limit the trips to fast food restaurants. If your parent needs to be driven places or asks to have food delivered, a kind “no” to requests for McDonalds or Taco Bell will help her avoid high-fat, low nutrition food that contributes to her obesity. Offer to pick her up fresh food from a local deli the next time she requests a pick up.
• Have healthy snacks on hand. By prepping a bunch of fresh vegetables or fruits and cheeses for immediate consumption, your parent may learn to reach for those options when she’s hungry instead of a bag of cookies or chips. Your elderly care provider can help by cleaning, chopping and storing fresh veggies or fruits for your parent to grab when she needs a little extra calories to hold her over till meal time.

As with any weight-loss plan, have your elderly parent check in with her physician to make sure she is taking necessary safety precautions while working on getting her weight to more healthy level.

If you or an aging loved one are considering elderly care in Atherton, CA, please contact the caring staff at Innovative Healthcare Consultants today. Call us at (760) 731-1334.​​