The joy of eating: how eating experiences enhance the well-being of older adults

Abstract

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IntroductionThe active aging strategy has as its policy implications the health, security, and participation of older people. The joy of eating is the main goal of establishing community-based service facilities for older people, as well as a source of health and well-being and a sense of meaning in the lives of older people.MethodsBased on the theory of human-environment relations and cognitive-emotional personality systems (CAPS), the study constructed a structural equation model of the eating experience, nostalgia, place attachment, and the well-being of the older adults in the community canteens as an interactive situation, and explored the relationship between the eating experience and the well-being of older people in the community canteens through the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).ResultsThe results of the study show that the older adults’ eating experience has a significant positive effect on their well-being, and “eating” can make older adults feel happy. Older adults’ eating experience has a significant effect on nostalgia, place attachment, and well-being, but nostalgia does not have a significant effect on older adults’ well-being, and place attachment in the community canteens can enhance older adults’ well-being. Meanwhile, the study further confirmed that place attachment plays a mediating role in the effect of eating experience on older adults’ well-being.DiscussionThe findings of the study promote the development of the fields of healthy eating, quality of life assessment, and dietary memory management for older people to a certain extent and provide an important reference for promoting the balanced layout and effective spatial design of community service facilities for older people.

Keywords

• eating experience
• CAPS
• nostalgia
• place attachment
• older adults’ well-being