October 20, 2016.
On Wednesday, October 19, the Collective for the fight against malnutrition launched a manifesto to raise public awareness of the plight of thousands of people who suffer from malnutrition.
Undernutrition: what are we talking about?
Do we even know what undernutrition is? It is a disease that results from insufficient food intake, increased nutrient loss, or a combination of the two. According to the Collective for the fight against malnutrition, 2 million people in France suffer from this disease. The main victims are the elderly, patients who do not eat enough or even patients with Alzheimer’s who forget to eat..
40% of hospitalized people and 25% of elderly people with loss of autonomy in France are undernourished according to the collective. The disease results in unintentional weight loss of more than 5% in one month or more than 10% in six months. In addition, sick people have a body mass index (BMI) lower than the minimum health curves (18.5 for those under 65 and 21 for the elderly).
How to fight against undernutrition?
According to Professor Éric Fontaine, a nutritionist at Grenoble University Hospital and founder of the collective, solutions exist. ” If the person eats a little more, we can make him eat richer things, that is to say that in a little volume we put a lot of calories and a lot of protein », He explained on France Info. ” At the hospital it is also, when patients cannot eat on their own, take the time to feed them, which is no longer the case for lack of personnel “.
Among the many solutions put forward by the collective to fight against the disease, Éric Fontaine insists on the importance of giving appetizing food in hospitals notably. And for things to move, it requires a strong citizen mobilization.
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