Three short planning talks made healthy eating feel more automatic for older people
Who it’s about: Older adults, People with a health condition
- Helped
Planning one new eating habit at a time made healthy food feel more automatic than a leaflet did.
- Action: Make an if-then plan for your obstacletested
- Rule: Write down when and wheretested
- Rule: In the same place each timetested
- Action: Eat fruit and vegetablesused
- Rule: With a coach or therapistused
Small randomised trial of 54 older dental patients in Northern Ireland · vs people who only got a healthy-eating leaflet · they rated themselves · ⚠ numbers unreliable; many people dropped out
The study
Who took part
54 dental patients aged 65 or over, about 72 on average. In the last 5 years they had finished work on their teeth, such as dentures. This was at a dental centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland. About 4 in 10 were women.
What they did
One group had three one-to-one talks of about 30 minutes over 4 weeks. Each time they picked one new eating habit, such as a banana with breakfast. They wrote down where and when they'd do it and how they'd get past problems. Then they did it in the same setting each time and ticked it off on a sheet. Both groups got a leaflet on healthy eating.
What happened
Four months later, the habit group said healthy food felt more automatic to eat than the leaflet group did. This held for fruit and vegetables, whole grains and better proteins, and still held at 8 months. Five people left the habit group and none left the other group, and some of the paper's numbers don't match.
Source
Establishing Healthy Eating ‘Habits’: A Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial of a Habit-Based Dietary Intervention following Oral Rehabilitation for Older Adults (2023)
DOI: 10.3390/nu15030731 (opens in a new tab)Tools in this study
Action4
Make an if-then plan for your obstacleImplementation intentions or WOOP/MCII: if this obstacle happens, then I will do that.
