Patterns of healthy lifestyle and positive health attitudes in older europeans.

Objectives: To determine (i) the extent to which recommended lifestyle healthy behaviors are adopted and the existence of positive attitudes to health; (ii) the relative influence of socio-demographic variables on multiple healthy lifestyle behaviors and positive attitudes to health; (iii) the association between healthy lifestyle behaviors and positive attitudes to health. Design: two distinct healthy behavioral measures were developed: (i) healthy lifestyles based on physical activity, no cigarette smoking, no/moderate alcohol drinking, maintaining a "healthy" weight and having no sleeping problems and (ii) positive health attitudes based on having positive emotional attitudes, such as: self-perceived good health status, being calm, peaceful and happy for most of the time, not expecting health to get worse and regular health check-ups. A composite healthy lifestyle index, ranging from 0 (none of behaviors met) to 5 (all behaviors met) was calculated by summing up the individual's scores for the five healthy lifestyle items. Afterwards, each individual's index was collapsed into three levels: 0-2 equivalent to 'level 1' (subjectively regarded as 'too low'), a score of 3 equivalent to 'level 2' ('fair') and 4-5 as 'level 3' satisfactory 'healthy lifestyle' practices. The same procedure was applied to the positive health attitudes index. Multinomial logistic regression analyses by a forward selection procedure were used to calculate the adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Participants: a multi-national sample consisting of 638 older Europeans from 8 countries, aged 65-74 and 75+, living alone or with others. Results and conclusions: maintaining a "healthy" weight was the most frequently cited factor in the healthy lifestyles index and therefore assumed to be the most important to the older Europeans in the study; positive attitudes to health were relatively low; participants achieved a 'satisfactory' level for healthy lifestyles index (level 3) more frequently than a satisfactory level for positive attitudes to health; having a satisfactory 'healthy lifestyle' was directly related to having a satisfactory level of positive attitudes to health based on the positive health attitudes index; income and geographical location in Europe appeared to be key predictors for meeting both the recommended healthy lifestyle factors in the index and having positive health attitudes however, the composition and nature of the study sample should be taken into consideration when considering the impact of the location on healthy lifestyles and attitudes to health across Europe

Continuity in the kitchen: how younger and older women compare in their food practices and use of cooking skills

Comparisons between younger and older women in the kitchen usually focus on the historical argument that younger women do not have the domestic cooking skills of their mothers or grandmothers. At one level, this is convincing because there is now demonstrably greater reliance on ready meals and processed foods, and less on the home production of meals from raw ingredients. Compared with the immediate post-Second World War years, not so much time is routinely spent in the kitchen, and food preparation is no longer a task central to the lives of many women. The availability of meals or meal components requiring less domestic labour and improved kitchen technology are both factors in this transformation of women's lives. However, they are not just available to the young. So, this research questions the impact of these factors across the age spectrum. Older women may have had very different domestic experiences earlier in their lives but have they now converged with the practices of younger women? How do younger and older women compare in terms of their food practices and the cooking skills they currently use in the kitchen? Using Scottish questionnaire data from a cross-national study, this paper reports on the differences and similarities for 37 younger women (25–45 years; mean 32 years) and 43 older women (60–75 years; mean 68 years) in their actual use of specific food preparation and cooking techniques, the kind of meals they made, and the extent to which they ate out or ordered in meals for home consumption. Results indicated that while there were some differences in food preparation, the use of fresh ingredients and the style of cooking undertaken in the home, these were mostly marginal. There were similar response patterns for the adequacy of their domestic facilities and equipment. There was, however, a notable divergence in their patterns of eating meals out, or phoning out for meals. These data suggest that while younger and older women – different cooking generations – do differ, the way they differ is related more to current lifestyle factors than to any highly differentiated domestic food preparation and cooking skills

Patterns of healthy lifestyle and positive health attitudes in older Europeans

Objectives: To determine (i) the extent to which recommended lifestyle healthy behaviors are adopted and the existence of positive attitudes to health; (ii) the relative influence of socio-demographic variables on multiple healthy lifestyle behaviors and positive attitudes to health; (iii) the association between healthy lifestyle behaviors and positive attitudes to health. Design: two distinct healthy behavioral measures were developed: (i) healthy lifestyles based on physical activity, no cigarette smoking, no/moderate alcohol drinking, maintaining a "healthy" weight and having no sleeping problems and (ii) positive health attitudes based on having positive emotional attitudes. such as: self-perceived good health status, being calm, peaceful and happy for most of the time, not expecting health to get worse and regular health check-ups. A composite healthy lifestyle index, ranging from 0 (none of behaviors met) to 5 (all behaviors met) was calculated by summing up the individual's scores for the five healthy lifestyle items. Afterwards, each individual's index was collapsed into three levels: 0-2 equivalent to 'level 1' (subjectively regarded as 'too low'), a score of 3 equivalent to 'level 2 ('fair') and 4-5 as 'level 3' satisfactory 'healthy lifestyle' practices. The same procedure was applied to the positive health attitudes index. Multinomial logistic regression analyses by a forward selection procedure were used to calculate the adjusted odds ratio (OR) with 95% confidence interval (95% CI). Participants: a multi-national sample consisting of 638 older Europeans from 8 countries, aged 65-74 and 75+, living alone or with others. Results and conclusions: maintaining a "healthy" weight was the most frequently cited factor in the healthy lifestyles index and therefore assumed to be the most important to the older Europeans in the study; positive attitudes to health were relatively low; participants achieved a 'satisfactory' level for healthy lifestyles index (level 3) more frequently than a satisfactory level for positive attitudes to health; having a satisfactory 'healthy lifestyle' was directly related to having a satisfactory level of positive attitudes to health based on the positive health attitudes index: income and geographical location in Europe appeared to be key predictors for meeting both the recommended healthy lifestyle factors in the index and having positive health attitudes however, the composition and nature of the study sample should be taken into consideration when considering the impact of the location on healthy lifestyles and attitudes to health across Europe