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Factors Associated With Food Expenditures Of Elderly Persons Living Alone

Department of Food, Nutrition and Institution Administration, College of Human Ecology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742

Marjorie P. Penfield

Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, College of Home Economics and Agricultural Experiment Station, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996

The first objective of this study was to determine the relative importance of food- and nutrition-related attitudes and socioeconomic, personal, and social charac teristics in predicting food expenditures of elderly persons living alone. The second objective was to investigate the effect of inflation on their food expendi tures. Retired individuals, 60 years of age or older, who lived alone were inter viewed ; those who were willing kept food purchase diaries for two one-month periods, seven months apart. Regression models explained 28 to 60 percent of the variation in food expenditures. The independent variables provided more explanatory power in predicting total, at-store, and away-from-home food ex penditures than in predicting the percentage of the food dollar spent within food groups. The respondents spent most of their food dollar for food at the grocery store and little for food away from home. Their total food expenditures were comparable to the amounts recommended for USDA's Low-Cost Food Plan for women living alone. Although changes in food expenditures over the seven- month period were not statistically significant, there was an upward trend. The inflation rate for the period of study was approximately six to eight percent; the increase in the respondents' mean food expenditure was approximately 6.5 per cent.

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