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Eating well is vital for your overall health.
Healthy food provides your body with the ingredients that support your mood and memory, and help you better avoid or manage health problems. Eating well can also help you maintain a healthy weight and function optimally.
You need to eat the right quantity of food, have the right balance of different food groups and avoid snacking and eating too much processed food.
Here are some things you can do to help you eat well. You need to eat more good food, drink well and avoid unhealthy food.
Good eating
Regularly eat varied and healthy food.
Eat fresh food or alternately eat frozen or canned foods such as peas or corn.
Eat foods rich in substances that protect your body and brain. These are found in olive oil, nuts, green and colourful vegetables, and dark-coloured berries like blueberries.
Eat foods rich in protein to help maintain or increase your muscle strength and size. Protein can come from foods such as lean meat, fish, chicken, eggs, nuts, and beans. Having healthy muscles helps you stay independent for longer.
Eat foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. This can include oily fish (e.g., sardines, tuna, salmon), walnuts and green leafy vegetables. These will especially help keep your brain healthy.
Consume unprocessed foods because they have fibre, healthy carbohydrates and nutrients and minerals. These include foods like beans, seeds, almonds, seafood, tofu, fresh or dried fruit, leafy greens, wholemeal bread, wholemeal pasta and brown rice.
Eat foods rich in calcium to support bone health. Calcium is found in dairy products such as milk, yoghurt, and cheese. You can also get calcium from non-dairy sources such as almonds or sardines.
Eat fermented foods. These are rich in beneficial bacteria that help keep your gut healthy. Eat yoghurt or other fermented foods such as sauerkraut or kimchi.
Harmful eating
Try to cut down or eliminate unhealthy food, especially processed foods and snacks which tend to have added sugar, salt, or artificial additives to make food taste better or last longer.
White bread, rice, pasta and potatoes make your blood sugar go too high and over time increase your risk of diabetes. Try substituting with wholemeal bread, brown rice, wholemeal pasta and sweet potatoes where possible.
Be mindful of your meal portion sizes. Eat enough to stop you getting hungry.
Be mindful of snacking when you are stressed as comfort eating only gives you temporary relief and helps you put on weight.
Drink better
Try to keep within the recommended limits of alcohol intake for your age. Too much alcohol will damage your brain and body and increase your risk of falls. Alcohol will worsen your symptoms if you have diabetes, high blood pressure or ulcers.
Keep yourself well hydrated by trying to drink about 8 glasses of water every day. You could drink this in small amounts on the hour every hour that you are awake or make a routine that suits you.
Read more
Nutrition needs when you’re over 65
Recipes for Wellbeing- WILMA women’s health centre:
Healthy eating for older adults:
Healthy eating for when you are older:
Protein and its role in healthy ageing:
The Importance of Staying Hydrated for Seniors and Elders:
National Institute of Ageing nutrition page
Low-cost healthy meal recipes for seniors
Eating well: a food and nutrition resources for frail older people and their carers
What does it mean to have prediabetes?
See more
Protein and its role in healthy ageing:
Recommendations on hydration for older adults – Nutrition UP 65 project:
For enquiries about Live Well contact Dr Carmelo Aquilina, Director of Older People’s Mental Health Service of the South Western Sydney Local Health Service, at SWSLHD-FOH@health.nsw.gov.au.