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Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults

BACKGROUND: Social isolation is a growing public health concern for older adults, as it has been associated with poor health and premature mortality. On the other hand, physical inactivity and an inadequate diet are important health risk behaviours associated with physical and mental health problems...

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Autores principales: Delerue Matos, Alice, Barbosa, Fátima, Cunha, Cláudia, Voss, Gina, Correia, Filipa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8122541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33992074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10956-w
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author Delerue Matos, Alice
Barbosa, Fátima
Cunha, Cláudia
Voss, Gina
Correia, Filipa
author_facet Delerue Matos, Alice
Barbosa, Fátima
Cunha, Cláudia
Voss, Gina
Correia, Filipa
author_sort Delerue Matos, Alice
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Social isolation is a growing public health concern for older adults, as it has been associated with poor health and premature mortality. On the other hand, physical inactivity and an inadequate diet are important health risk behaviours associated with physical and mental health problems. Considering that there is no research examining the possible relationship between social isolation and the above mentioned health risk behaviours of European middle-aged and older adults, this cross-sectional study aims to contribute to filling this gap. METHODS: We used data from the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe), wave 6 (2015), release 7.0.0 (N = 67,173 individuals from 17 European countries plus Israel). Statistical tests for a two-group comparison were carried out to assess the differences between highly socially isolated individuals and low/intermediate socially isolated ones. Logistic regressions by country were performed to examine whether social isolation is associated with physical inactivity and an inadequate diet in the population aged 50 + . RESULTS: Our results point out that, for the majority of the countries analysed, highly socially isolated individuals are more likely than low/intermediate isolated ones to be physically inactive and to consume less fruit or vegetables on a daily basis. In 9 European countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Luxembourg and Estonia) highly socially isolated individuals are more likely to be physically inactive. On the other hand, in 14 European countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Denmark, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Estonia and Croatia), high social isolation increases the likelihood of having an inadequate diet. CONCLUSION: Highly socially isolated European middle-aged and older adults are more prone to be physically inactive and to have an inadequate diet in terms of daily consumption of fruit and vegetables. The reduced social integration, social support and companionship of the highly socially isolated individuals may explain this association. Our results reinforce the importance of social and health policies targeting highly socially isolated European individuals aged 50 + .
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spelling pubmed-81225412021-05-17 Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults Delerue Matos, Alice Barbosa, Fátima Cunha, Cláudia Voss, Gina Correia, Filipa BMC Public Health Research BACKGROUND: Social isolation is a growing public health concern for older adults, as it has been associated with poor health and premature mortality. On the other hand, physical inactivity and an inadequate diet are important health risk behaviours associated with physical and mental health problems. Considering that there is no research examining the possible relationship between social isolation and the above mentioned health risk behaviours of European middle-aged and older adults, this cross-sectional study aims to contribute to filling this gap. METHODS: We used data from the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe), wave 6 (2015), release 7.0.0 (N = 67,173 individuals from 17 European countries plus Israel). Statistical tests for a two-group comparison were carried out to assess the differences between highly socially isolated individuals and low/intermediate socially isolated ones. Logistic regressions by country were performed to examine whether social isolation is associated with physical inactivity and an inadequate diet in the population aged 50 + . RESULTS: Our results point out that, for the majority of the countries analysed, highly socially isolated individuals are more likely than low/intermediate isolated ones to be physically inactive and to consume less fruit or vegetables on a daily basis. In 9 European countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Belgium, Poland, Luxembourg and Estonia) highly socially isolated individuals are more likely to be physically inactive. On the other hand, in 14 European countries (Austria, Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Denmark, Greece, Switzerland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Estonia and Croatia), high social isolation increases the likelihood of having an inadequate diet. CONCLUSION: Highly socially isolated European middle-aged and older adults are more prone to be physically inactive and to have an inadequate diet in terms of daily consumption of fruit and vegetables. The reduced social integration, social support and companionship of the highly socially isolated individuals may explain this association. Our results reinforce the importance of social and health policies targeting highly socially isolated European individuals aged 50 + . BioMed Central 2021-05-15 /pmc/articles/PMC8122541/ /pubmed/33992074 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10956-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Delerue Matos, Alice
Barbosa, Fátima
Cunha, Cláudia
Voss, Gina
Correia, Filipa
Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title_full Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title_fullStr Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title_full_unstemmed Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title_short Social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among European middle-aged and older adults
title_sort social isolation, physical inactivity and inadequate diet among european middle-aged and older adults
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8122541/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33992074
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10956-w
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