Social life characteristics in relation to adherence to the Mediterranean diet in older adults: findings from the Hellenic Longitudinal Investigation of Aging and Diet (HELIAD) study

Objective:The present study aimed to explore the associations between social life and adherence to a healthy dietary pattern, the Mediterranean diet (MD), in a population-representative cohort of older people.Design:Cross-sectional study. Adherence to the MD was evaluated by an a priori score; tertiles of the score, indicating low, medium and high adherence, were used in the analyses. Social life was assessed by a questionnaire evaluating participation in leisure-time activities and the number of social contacts; primary occupation was also recorded and job characteristics were further explored.Setting:Community-dwelling older adults.Participants:Adults from the Hellenic Longitudinal Investigation of Aging and Diet (HELIAD) study (n 1933; age range 65–99 years).Results:Each unit increase in the number of social contacts/month and in the frequency score of intellectual, social and physical activities was associated with a 1·6, 6·8, 4·8 and 13·7 % increase in the likelihood of a participant being in the high MD adherence group, respectively. The analysis by age group revealed that younger elderly participants had a 1·4, 8·4 and 11·3 % higher likelihood to be in the high adherence group for each unit increase in the number of social contacts/month and in the frequency score of engagement in intellectual and physical activities, respectively. Similar associations were found for older elderly participants with high compared with low MD adherence, except for the intellectual activities.Conclusions:The present results suggest that high MD adherence is associated with good social life, suggesting a clustering of health-promoting lifestyle factors in older adults.