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On Their Own

Nutritional Self-Management Strategies of Rural Widowers

^a Department of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
^b Department of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC
^c Department of Family and Community Medicine, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, NC

Correspondence: Sara A. Quandt, PhD, Department of Public Health Sciences, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157-1063. E-mail: squandt{at}wfubmc.edu.

Decision Editor: Vernon L. Greene, PhD

In-depth interviews conducted with 12 rural widowers participating in a population-based study of nutritional strategies of rural adults 70 years and older were analyzed to (a) identify factors that place widowers at risk for nutritional problems and (b) understand how rural residence is related to this risk. The nutritional strategies that successfully accomplished three groups of food-related tasks (food acquisition, food use, and maintaining food security) focused on one of three resource domains: self-care, informal support, and formal support. Resources that facilitated these nutritional strategies are identified, as are those conditions that led to nutritional strategies inadequate to ensure food acquisition, food use, and food security. These findings can be used to help identify rural elderly widowers who are at nutritional risk.

Key Words: Aging • Diet • Gender • Marital status

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