Specifics of nutrition of the elderly in ukraine: main characteristics and changes as a result of the war

Abstract

The article is devoted to the topical issues of assessing the nutrition of the elderly and the impact of the war in Ukraine on their consumption opportunities. The purpose of the article is to identify specific features, quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the nutrition of elderly people in Ukraine and to assess changes due to the impact of the war. The nutrition of the elderly in Ukraine has specific features determined by cultural traditions, national cuisine, the mentality of the population as a whole and of older age groups in particular. The diet of Ukrainians is characterized by excessive consumption of fats, and, as a result, high caloric content, insufficient consumption of proteins, vitamins and minerals. This negatively affects health and quality of life in general. In the conditions of war, it will be impossible for most pensioners to maintain the usual diet, and not to improve it too much. Therefore, the study of the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the nutrition of the elderly and their changes due to the war is particularly relevant. When writing the article, general scientific and special methods of scientific research were used: dialectical, formal-logical, analysis and synthesis, method of analogies and scientific abstraction, observation, comparison, graphic. The consumption of food products by main groups was analyzed in terms of various types of pensioner households and the poor according to various poverty measurement criteria. It was determined that families with a double demo-economic load have the worst opportunities to ensure a balanced diet.The share and amount of food expenses of different types of pensioner families, by quintile groups, poor and non-poor households were calculated. It was found that the diet of the elderly is high-calorie and unbalanced in terms of protein, fat and carbohydrate content. It has been proven that in the households of pensioners there is a significant differentiation of the caloric content of the food ration and protein consumption depending on the level of well-being. A quintile distribution of households consuming less than 2000 kcal per person per day was constructed. It was concluded that low-calorie nutrition in pensioner households is caused mainly by the financial inability to maintain the usual diet. And only about every tenth pensioner household can be said that following a low-calorie diet can be considered the result of a conscious choice in favor of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Based on the actual indicators of poverty among pensioner households and the poverty forecast for 2022, it was concluded that due to the war in Ukraine, the opportunities of elderly people to improve their diet have significantly decreased and will only worsen in the future. The impossibility of timely and full payment of pensions and social benefits will lead to the fact that the vast majority of elderly people in the zone of active hostilities and in the occupied territories will be left without means of livelihood, and therefore will find themselves actually on the verge of physiological survival.