Nutrition Science for Retired Rural Population in Slovenia

Like in all other countries, the population in Slovenia is aging. The number of retired and elderly people is ever increasing and the quality of their lives greatly depends on their health, social and economic conditions. Most frequent health problems in this age are often due to unhealthy life styles and are manifested in obesity, diabetes, coronary and heart diseases, and different types of cancer. Therefore, an important role in preservation and enhancement of health is to encourage this population to take greater care about healthy nutrition. In this report, the authors present the implementation and evaluation of workshops on nutrition, which were organised for retired people from rural areas in Slovenia. With this target group the authors analysed how useful was the information presented through workshops and evaluated different methods of work. In this research, the authors applied qualitative and quantitative techniques of data collection. The results show that retired people have insufficient knowledge about nutrition, which is also reflected in inadequacy of their everyday nutrition. The evaluation of workshops proved that group work is the best and most successful method for presenting problems. Through group work the participants developed social contacts and the group dynamics contributed to forming positive attitudes towards healthy nutrition, which eventually influenced the participants to take decisions for changing their eating habits. The results show that in promoting healthy nutrition among rural population, one need to offer information on food and nutrition professionally and the participants will readily take the advice. This also requires suitable professionalism and adequate pedagogical education on the part of the training staff.