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Nutrition

Health and nutrition issues for women over 40

In the option strand, Contemporary Food Issues: Nutrition, you will learn about the nutritional considerations for specific groups and you will learn to investigate and report on the health of a group in Australia. You will also consider the influences on nutritional status. This tutorial focuses on the health and nutrition issues for women over 40. The material is based on articles published on the Internet by The Medical Journal of Australia .

Outcomes
This material addresses aspects of the following syllabus outcomes:
H2.1 The student evaluates the relationship between food, its production, consumption, promotion and health.
H3.2 The student investigates contemporary food issues.

Source: Board of Studies NSW, Stage 6 Food Technology Syllabus, Preliminary and HSC Courses (1999)

The health of Australian women

The Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) for women is grouped as 19 to 54 year olds and over 54 years old. In the article Why do women aged 40 and over need a different diet? What are their specific requirements and are they being met? it is suggested that the RDI for women over 40 should be similar to that for the over 54 year old, as many women are experiencing menopause.

Activity 1

Referring to this article complete the following questions.

Which nutrients do women often consume too little of?
Why does the paper suggest that the dietary needs of women over 40 are more similar to women over 54 as stated in the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) tables?
Identify the nutrient related factors that may contribute to breast cancer risk.
Plan one-day's menu for a woman aged 42 years to ensure she obtains the RDI for calcium, zinc and iron. Refer to the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating at the end of the article for guidance.

Answers

Good bone health

"Osteoporosis is a condition of impaired skeletal structure that can lead to greater bone fragility and increased risk of fracture. Risk of osteoporotic fracture is best determined by measuring bone mineral density (BMD)... It is estimated that about 40% of all postmenopausal women have osteoporosis and more than 40% will suffer a fracture in their lifetime." www.mja.com.au/public/nutrition/women/wquest8.html

Two major recommendations to women over 40 to optimise bone health are:

consume sufficient calcium
participate in regular weight-bearing exercise.

Activity 2

How many serves of low-fat dairy foods are recommended per day to obtain sufficient calcium?
List examples of weight-bearing exercise.

Answers

Is zinc an important nutrient for women aged 40 and over?

Zinc plays a role in wound healing and in fighting infections. Zinc is also required to help make some of the body's proteins and plays an important role in growth. For women over 40 it is particularly important for immune function. However in general the zinc intake of women over 40 is below the RDI of 12 mg. Zinc supplementation greater than 25mg/day should be avoided. Thus, to overcome possible zinc deficiency, Australian women should increase their intake of zinc through food sources such as oysters, lean red meat and fortified breakfast cereal. www.mja.com.au/public/nutrition/women/wquest3.html

Activity 3

The RDI for boys and girls 1618 years old is also 12 mg. Using the table in the article Is zinc an important nutrient for women aged 40 and over? calculate how much zinc you consume.
If your zinc intake is below the RDI how could you increase your intake?

Cardiovascular disease and women over 40

Cardiovascular disease is uncommon in premenopausal women, but thereafter its incidence increases exponentially with age and it is the leading cause of death among women in First World countries.

Lifestyle factors contribute significantly to reducing the risk of heart disease. Women over 40 who:

consume a healthy diet
avoid smoking
avoid obesity
exercise for half an hour a day
moderate alcohol consumption

have less than half the risk of heart disease as women without these lifestyle characteristics. www.mja.com.au/public/nutrition/women/wquest5.html

Antioxidants

Antioxidants in the diet also contribute to a lowered risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Women who reported eating at least one serving of wholegrain foods a day had a substantially lower risk of mortality from CHD compared with women who reported eating no wholegrain products. <www.mja.com.au/public/nutrition/women/wquest5.html>

Southern European diets containing large quantities of antioxidants also contain large quantities of olive oil, fruits and vegetables, fibre, red wine and garlic, and relatively low levels of saturated fat. Randomly allocating patients to an entire Mediterranean diet (including increased intake of fibre, omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, fruit and vegetables) dramatically reduced CHD recurrence.www.mja.com.au/public/nutrition/women/wquest5.html

Activity 4

Develop a strategy to promote optimum health through good nutrition for women over 40. Use the Medical Journal of Australia's recommendations as the basis for your strategy.

For more information on heart disease see the Towards a healthy heart tutorial and the Nutritionally modified foods tutorial which looks at the Healthwise food product.