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

Future challenges in day-care centre food services : will benchmarking help?

Purpose &ndash; The aim of this study is to identify the methods used by providers to evaluate their food services and identify elements of their service that would benefit from adopting a benchmarking system.Design/methodology/approach &ndash; In-depth interviews were conducted with 26 food services providers and key informants in day-care settings in Surrey.Findings &ndash; Few providers formally evaluated their service provision and most had not considered benchmarking their services against other food service providers. Factors such as food variety, food quality, cost and environment have been identified as issues that could be benchmarked and may benefit from the adoption of this process.Research limitations/implications &ndash; The study was conducted only in one country &ndash; in the UK &ndash; further research is needed into the evaluation practices of other local authorities. The benchmarking model that has been developed by the authors needs to be applied in a food service setting to establish its usefulness to food service managers.Practical implications &ndash; A model has been developed from the outcome of this research, which could aid evaluation processes for food service providers to identify aspects of the service in need of improvement.Originality/value &ndash; There has been little research conducted on the evaluation of food service provision for older people, especially for congregate meals. This paper provides a model, that food service providers may find useful, to identify areas of their food services that are suitable for benchmarking.<br /

Older people’s perceptions towards conventional and functional yoghurts: a cross-country study

Purpose The aim of this study is to investigate older people’s perceptions, across eight European countries (the UK, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Italy), towards functional foods. Design/methodology/approach The repertory grid method was used to elicit reasons underlying preferences of five yoghurts with different functional properties and two conventional ones. Findings Familiarity was the key driver in products’ separation. For the Italian case, as well as the Spanish, Portuguese, Danish and Swedish the first principal axis could be interpreted as novel-common axis, whilst it was not in the UK, Germany and Poland. Research limitations/implications Behavioural intention to buy functional yoghurts was more strongly predicted and moderated by single item perceived need (PN) than single item affective and/or cognitive attitude (AA, CA), even though PN, AA and CA could be consistently assessed within the same latent measure (in all countries but Denmark). Nevertheless, beliefs/attitudes towards a novel category of products such as functional foods may be reasonably keeping moving. Originality/value In this study, preference instructions pertaining to beneficial and imagery attributes, revealed idiosyncratic properties associated with functional yoghurts across eight European samples of older people.</p