Department of Food studies, Nutrition and Dietetics, Uppsala University, Box 560, 75122 Uppsala, Sweden.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 27;18(7):3495. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18073495.
Research on healthy aging commonly concerns problems related to loneliness and food intake. These are not independent aspects of health since eating, beyond its biological necessity, is a central part of social life. This scoping review aimed to map scientific articles on eating alone or together among community-living older people, and to identify relevant research gaps. Four databases were searched, 989 articles were identified and 98 fulfilled the inclusion criteria. In the first theme, eating alone or together are treated as central topics of interest, isolated from adjoining, broader concepts such as social participation. In the second, eating alone or together are one aspect of the findings, e.g., one of several risk factors for malnutrition. Findings confirm the significance of commensality in older peoples' life. We recommend future research designs allowing identification of causal relationships, using refined ways of measuring meals alone or together, and qualitative methods adding complexity.
健康老龄化的研究通常涉及孤独和食物摄入等问题。这些问题并非健康的独立方面，因为进食除了具有生物学必要性之外，还是社会生活的核心部分。本范围综述旨在绘制关于社区居住的老年人独自或一起进食的科学文章，并确定相关的研究空白。四个数据库进行了检索，确定了 989 篇文章，其中 98 篇符合纳入标准。在第一个主题中，独自或一起进食被视为关注的核心主题，与社会参与等相邻、更广泛的概念相分离。在第二个主题中，独自或一起进食是研究结果的一个方面，例如，营养不良的几个风险因素之一。研究结果证实了共餐在老年人生活中的重要性。我们建议未来的研究设计允许确定因果关系，使用更精细的方法来测量单独或一起进食的情况，并采用定性方法增加复杂性。
