Does Eating Out Make Elderly People Depressed? Empirical Evidence from National Health and Nutrition Survey in Taiwan.

CONCLUSION: Our results show that elderly who eat out have a higher chance of having depressive symptoms. To prevent depressive symptoms in the elderly, policy makers should be aware of the relationship among psychological status, physical health and nutritional health when assisting the elderly to better manage their food consumption away from home. LIMITATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH: Our study have some caveats. First, the interpretation of our results on the causality issue calls for caution in that our analysis relies on a cross-sectional survey. Second, other measures to define elderly depression, such as the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression (CES-D) score, can be used to check the robustness of our findings. Finally, the availability of food outlets in the local area and family characteristics are possibly associated with food away from home of the elderly. If data permit, the relationship between eating out and elderly depressive symptoms can be better identified after controlling for variables related to food facilities and family characteristics. PMID: 28604353 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics - Category: Psychiatry Tags: J Ment Health Policy Econ Source Type: research