Even in an environment in which there is ample food available to eat, older patients may still experience malnutrition. Such malnutrition may represent a failure to eat or may involve a deficiency in a specific element such as a single vitamin. As with most health problems, it is better to prevent malnutrition than to treat it. Each of us has food likes and dislikes. For the older patient, it is a short step from picky eating to poor nutrition. The common causes of poor nutrition are given below. Correction begins with recognizing the potential causes. Often several factors, none alone serious enough to be a problem, combine to produce true malnutrition.
