How do I help my mother eat better?
Although I share your concerns about your mother's diet--she's lucky to have you to help her--what's immediately more important is helping her recover her function and mobility. In particular, I’m wondering about her being on bedrest. Unless the pelvis is very unstable (in which case the surgeons usually operate to make it stable), most orthopedic surgeons and rehabilitation doctors recommend that the injured person start moving around as soon as possible. Older people lose strength quickly when they stay in bed. Mobilizing and physical therapy should be done carefully, of course, and with supervision, in order to prevent falls.
It's possible she's reluctant to move because people also have a lot of pain after a pelvic fracture. It might be worthwhile double-checking both her pain management and mobility plans with your mother’s doctors.
Although a nutritious diet is always a good idea, in the short-term it probably won’t make a huge difference to her recovery. This is assuming that your mother doesn’t have a medical problem that's highly diet-sensitive. For example, congestive heart failure and chronic liver disease are two diseases for which reducing one’s salt intake can improve symptoms over just a few days. Diabetes can also be affected short-term by one’s diet.
One risk of focusing too much on her diet is that your good intentions might create tension between the two of you. Instead of lecturing or just flat-out changing her meals, try to understand what it is that keeps her eating her less-healthy diet. For example:
- Is she unconvinced that there's a connection between nutrition and health?
- Is she resistant to your input because it's a control issue? Older family members sometimes want to be left alone about their eating habits in order to feel respected.
- Does she feel like she doesn’t have time or energy to cook better meals from scratch?
- Is she under the impression that healthy food is too expensive?
- Or maybe she finds that low-salt foods just taste too bland?
If you can hear each other’s concerns and opinions respectfully, you might find her less resistant to little starter steps – fresh apple slices for a snack, a green salad with her canned dinner, or adding lemon to brighten the flavor of a low-sodium soup. With your mother’s permission, you could also bring up your concerns regarding her diet to her primary care provider.
I have had the same issue with my mother; in spite of what the doctor tells her about salty foods, etc., she still eats them. When I'm gone during the day, she fills up on things like potato chips; when I get home and fix dinner, she claims not to have an appetite; after I go to bed, she sneaks things like cookies.
Certainly, not my idea of "sensible eating", but, hey, she'll be 96 in a few months, so even though it doesn't seem healthy.......
I'm just more cognizant of keeping things like ice-cream cups, pudding, individual fruit cups, applesauce, fruited jello, etc. available--anything to keep her nutrition up and help with the common problem in the elderly of dehydration.
When people reach a certain age let them eat whatever they want to eat. It is difficult enough having to deal with an illness or injury without losing what you love to eat as well. Make things as normal as they were for her before she had the injury. My mom and dad love their junk foods and they are in their 80's and take insulin. I say let them have whatever makes them happy. Just see if you can introduce more dairy into her diet for the calcium; however there are supplements for that as well.
You will need to take care of yourself too and I know it is more difficult to make 2 different meals, but perhaps you can both compromise a little. Good luck and tell you mom hello from Texas and good wishes for a speedy and thorough recovery.
Sandy
My mother moved into my home recently, is bed-bound, 90 years of age. I eat pretty healthy - lots of fresh home grown fruits, whole grains, etc.
My mom loves snack foods, soda's, candy bars, what some of us consider "junk foods". She does like whole grain breads.
Eating habits are usually a lifelong habit and hard to change.
I am not about to change her eating habits now. I do add in healthful things like melon, home grown tomatoes, scrambled eggs. She still gets her snack foods and soda's and she has healthful things also. Things like melons - cantaloupe and watermelon's also add to the liquid part of her diet so she does not get dehydrated. She is stubborn and has been eating and drinking less and less, as I think most oldsters eat less as time goes by.
I am not about to change her eating habits at this time in her life, and also feel that she's lived this long and whatever she enjoys in the food department - I say let her have it!!!
My father is 90 and eats whatever he likes, which includes cornflakes for breakfast, pasta,cheese, & sausages for dinner, and lots of ice cream and cake. He is thin, so he doesn't have the problems that come with obesity, but has marginally high cholesterol. The doctor wants to change his diet and put him on medication, but I know it would never work. His memory is too far gone for him to remember to eat better. I say, let him enjoy his food.
