It’s not just the food, it’s the deliverer.
A new study shows that the break in social isolation may be nearly as important as meeting the nutritional needs of seniors when weighing the importance of benefits of Meals on Wheels programs. An extensive research project compared those receiving daily home-delivered meals, those getting weekly frozen meals, and those who were not enrolled in the program at all.
The results were striking, according to the study’s lead author, Kali Thomas, assistant professor (research) of health services, policy and practice at Brown University School of Public Health, who spoke with Medical News Today: "This continues to build the body of evidence that home-delivered meals provide more than nutrition and food security."
When they analyzed the before and after results, the researchers found that both measures showed a statistically significant reduction in self-reported feelings of loneliness among those who had home-delivered meals, compared with those who did not.
Loneliness is not just about quality of life or psychological health for seniors, although that obviously should be a factor as we engage with issues that affect the elderly. Feelings of social isolation have been shown toincrease the risk of premature death by 14 percent and can cause physical changes at the cellular level, according to University of Chicago psychologist John Cacioppo.