Cooking secret ingredient to NZ's ageing challenge

A spot of cooking could be part of the secret recipe for preparing New Zealand for an older, frailer population.

Within two decades, nearly one in four Kiwis will be older than 65 - that's almost 550,000 than the number of superannuants two years ago - posing a particularly massive challenge for our health system.

The loss of physical and mental function is a major issue among the age group, and remains a big reason why many elderly leave their homes to move into care facilities.

Amid wider efforts to keep elderly in their homes for as long as possible, researchers are investigating whether some of the decline of physical function can be caught and stopped early on.

In the second largest study of its kind in the world, they've been observing 500 seniors around the country taking part in group exercises, social clubs and cooking classes.

As part of the eight-week Senior Chef course, participants learn about the dietary requirements for their age, how to shop for healthy ingredients and how to cook meals for one or two people.

"Senior Chef is all about keeping older people confident and motivated to maintain cooking for themselves, and looking after themselves," explained programme facilitator Robyn Waalkens.

The challenges of ageing - from poor physical function to loneliness and a lack of motivation - could mean eating and cooking wasn't the experience it once used to be.

"And some of them are not always eating as well as they could be," she said.

"So this is particularly focused on the aspects of nutrition that effect older people, and to reinforce that for them to maintain their health as well as possible."

Waalkens was also running the exercise programme, dubbed Steady As You Go, and which focused on preventing falls.

Otago University Associate Professor Debra Waters said the main aim of the wider study was trying to push back the age threshold at which people became frail.

"We're trying to look at different ways in which we can address those kinds of changes in people's functioning, by proper nutrition and some more exercise," she said.

"We've recruited 500 people across the country, and they are assigned to either exercise or a nutrition class, a combination of the two, or a kind of socialisation, where they go to and play board games and just talk with each other."

Waters said social isolation was "a real problem" as people aged - particularly if they were starting to lose some of their physical functioning, and spending more time alone and more time in their houses.

"So it gives them an opportunity to come together, and you can really improve a persons' quality of life when they have a better social connection with people."

Once the trials had finished, the researchers would begin analysing the data to see what benefits the programme had brought.

"And then we will investigate to see whether or not we've got an additive effect when you do exercise along with good nutrition, as far as reversing the loss of function."

So far, the results were promising - all participants had reported some improvement in their lives.

"Anecdotally, what people tell us is that they really feel like they've gained a lot out of the programmes, and there's quite a desire to carry on doing these programmes - so there's some good outcomes from this already."