A senior eats lunch alone at a fast-food restaurant in Seoul on Jul. 11, 2022. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Seniors who eat alone grow old much faster than others, a study indicated Tuesday.
A joint research team from Samsung Medical Center and Kyung Hee University Medical Center conducted a study of 2,072 seniors who participated in the Korea Frailty and Aging Cohort Study in 2016 and 2017, comparing their aging speed based on their diet behavior over a two-year period.
Initially, seniors participating in the study weren’t categorized as ‘frail’. In the first two surveys, seniors eating alone comprised 17 percent of all participants.
Those who had partners to eat with and then ate alone two years later (136 people) were 61 percent more likely to grow frail than those who continued to have partners to eat with (1,583 people).
The research team said that seniors eating alone were three times more likely to lose weight among the five indices of frailty diagnosis.
Sorted by gender, female seniors eating alone were 1.6 times more likely to experience extreme fatigue, and 2.8 times more likely to walk slower.
In the two surveys, seniors who continued to eat alone were 2.39 times more likely to lose weight, and 2.07 times more likely to lose muscle mass, out of all of the frailty indices.
In contrast, seniors who started off eating alone, then found a partner to eat with two years later (136 people) were far less likely to suffer from extreme fatigue.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
