| With the rapidly increasing American elderly population, food companies, healthcare workers, and policy makers alike are asking whether the dietary habits and food consumption patterns of this growing segment of the U.S. population will follow those of current and past elderly people or whether their cohort will eat like they did when they were younger. The purpose of this report is to review what is known about changes in nutritional intake and food consumption patterns that are associated with cohorts (generational) and with the aging process in the U.S. population. Recent literature on cohort and aging effects related to food consumption indicates that the aging effect is greater than the cohort effect. That is, diets change as people age, due to... |
