Cargando…

Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea

Older men who live alone are typically believed to be highly susceptible to malnutrition. However, recent studies report their living alone status is associated with frailty negatively and with Type 2 diabetes positively. Meanwhile, older women who live alone are believed to be less susceptible to m...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Bae, Youngjoon, Pachucki, Mark
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741926/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3343
_version_ 1783623866750337024
author Bae, Youngjoon
Pachucki, Mark
author_facet Bae, Youngjoon
Pachucki, Mark
author_sort Bae, Youngjoon
collection PubMed
description Older men who live alone are typically believed to be highly susceptible to malnutrition. However, recent studies report their living alone status is associated with frailty negatively and with Type 2 diabetes positively. Meanwhile, older women who live alone are believed to be less susceptible to malnutrition, but qualitative research point out their high likelihood of malnutrition. There is little literature to explain these paradoxes. To evaluate this gap in understanding of how a metabolic process may be shaped by social context, this study examines whether different aspects of social isolation among older men and women (living alone, social contact, loneliness) are associated with adverse weight loss, as well as with indicators of meal frequency and body weight. For this, a data set comprised of 6,680 older adults from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging surveyed every two years from 2006 to 2018 was analyzed using panel regression models. Among older men, living alone was negatively associated with logged body weight even when considering loneliness but not associated with meal frequency and 5kg or more weight loss. Among older women, living alone was not associated with logged body weight but associated with fewer meals and 5kg or more weight loss. The association disappeared when considering loneliness. Unexpectedly, social contact was not significant to prevent adverse weight loss.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7741926
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2020
publisher Oxford University Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-77419262020-12-21 Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea Bae, Youngjoon Pachucki, Mark Innov Aging Abstracts Older men who live alone are typically believed to be highly susceptible to malnutrition. However, recent studies report their living alone status is associated with frailty negatively and with Type 2 diabetes positively. Meanwhile, older women who live alone are believed to be less susceptible to malnutrition, but qualitative research point out their high likelihood of malnutrition. There is little literature to explain these paradoxes. To evaluate this gap in understanding of how a metabolic process may be shaped by social context, this study examines whether different aspects of social isolation among older men and women (living alone, social contact, loneliness) are associated with adverse weight loss, as well as with indicators of meal frequency and body weight. For this, a data set comprised of 6,680 older adults from the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging surveyed every two years from 2006 to 2018 was analyzed using panel regression models. Among older men, living alone was negatively associated with logged body weight even when considering loneliness but not associated with meal frequency and 5kg or more weight loss. Among older women, living alone was not associated with logged body weight but associated with fewer meals and 5kg or more weight loss. The association disappeared when considering loneliness. Unexpectedly, social contact was not significant to prevent adverse weight loss. Oxford University Press 2020-12-16 /pmc/articles/PMC7741926/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3343 Text en © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Abstracts
Bae, Youngjoon
Pachucki, Mark
Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title_full Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title_fullStr Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title_full_unstemmed Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title_short Dimensions of Social Isolation and Weight Loss among Older Men and Women in S. Korea
title_sort dimensions of social isolation and weight loss among older men and women in s. korea
topic Abstracts
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741926/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igaa057.3343
work_keys_str_mv AT baeyoungjoon dimensionsofsocialisolationandweightlossamongoldermenandwomeninskorea
AT pachuckimark dimensionsofsocialisolationandweightlossamongoldermenandwomeninskorea