Older adults, mealtime-related emotions, and functionalities : tailoring protein-enriched meals

<p><strong>Background and aim </strong></p> <p>Dietary proteins are of special interest for the heterogeneous group of older adults, since these people do not always have an adequate protein intake. When protein-rich products are better aligned with the requirements of older persons, an adequate nutrient intake is more likely. In this thesis we therefore explored two approaches for tailoring protein-enriched meals to older consumer subgroups; emotion-based and functionality-based. We expected a better ‘product-cluster fit’ (i.e. a more positive meal experience) when the clusters’ meal associations are congruent to their mealtime expectations.</p> <p><strong>Methods </strong></p> <p>We conducted an online survey in which vital community-dwelling older adults (n=392) reported their mealtime-related emotions and mealtime functionality. Using a hierarchical clustering analysis we described clusters within our population. Subsequently, we explored the extent to which the expectations of these clusters can be applied for the development of tailored protein-enriched meals. For the emotion-based approach, we conducted two central location tests (CLTs, n=461) to explore older adults’ food-evoked emotions. For the functionality-based approach we conducted in-depth interviews in order to get further insights regarding functional mealtime expectations and attitudes towards proteins and protein-enrichment. Based on the latter insights we tailored PE meal concepts to two functionality-based segments. In a final home-use test, the members of the functionality-based segments (n=91) prepared and evaluated the tailored PE meal concepts.</p> <p><strong>Results </strong></p> <p>The emotion-based approach resulted in four clusters; <em>pleasurable averages, adventurous arousals, convivial indulgers</em>, and <em>indifferent restrictives</em>. These emotions that these segments associated with their mealtimes varied along the two dimensions valence and arousal. However, from both CLTs we learned that the variation in valence-arousal as observed for mealtime-related emotions was not observed for emotions related to actual foods. The latter makes it challenging to identify products that evoke emotions congruent to the mealtime expectations of the emotion-based clusters.</p> <p>With regard to the functionality-based approach, we encountered three clusters; <em>physical nutritioners, cosy socialisers, </em>and <em>thoughtless averages. </em>The<em> cosy socialisers </em>value the social interactions and cosiness during their mealtimes, whereas the<em> physical nutritioners </em>focus more on the health and nutrient aspects of meals. <em>Thoughtless averages</em> have the least distinctive mealtime expectations. We translated these functional mealtime expectations into two PE meal concepts; one tailored to <em>cosy socialisers</em> and one tailored to <em>physical nutritioners</em>. These meal concepts were well-accepted by the participants. However, congruency between mealtime expectations and functional meal associations did not result in a better ‘product-cluster fit’.</p> <p><strong>Conclusions </strong></p> <p>Given the challenge to identify congruency between the meal associations and the mealtime expectations of the emotion-based clusters, we consider the emotion-based approach to be not yet actionable enough as a basis for tailoring PE products to older consumers. In contrast, the functionality-based approach appeared to be more promising, since the functional meal expectations could be translated to well-accepted tailored PE meal concepts. However, the effectivity of our functionality-based approach was not yet confirmed in this thesis, since congruency between functional meal associations and functional meal expectations did not necessarily result in a better ‘product-cluster fit’. Future studies, focussing on e.g. other meal types, are recommended to further explore mealtime functionality as a basis for tailoring PE meals to older consumer subgroups.</p> <p>