Be Clever This April Fool's Day
1st April 2025 By Carin Clegg, APD
Falls prevention is everyone’s business, nomatter your age or ability. April Falls Day is on the 1st of April, April Fool’s Day, and raises awareness of how to prevent falls.
After the age of 25 years, health factors decline if not eating nutritiously and participating in regular physical activity. These include bone density, muscle mass, metabolic rate (leading to unwanted fat stores increasing), blood sugar control, balance, joint mobility, muscle strength. Consequently, inflammation, risk of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, among others, and falls risk increases.
Today, it is quite alarming that overall, there are more kids with poorer fitness levels, and when they get injured it takes longer to recover from the injury and longer to build the fitness levels back up. I speak to so many adults in clinic with a past injury as a barrier to staying active and it can be so hard to get around the barriers. I often find that having a limitation can often change one's whole attitude to life in terms of making or adapting to change and even thinking of healthy habits as a positive idea. Being active and staying mobile is not just a physical thing, it is a mental thing as well.
Here are some ideas to keep you strong and on your mobile throughout life and into your golden years.
Eating regularly
Eating and even preparing your own food regularly over the day, helps you to eat all the nutrients your body needs.
Having a good routine of eating meals and snacks at certain times each day will keep your energy levels up, fuelling your mind and body and is a great way to maintain those healthy eating habits as you age. Skipping meals is linked to poor appetite, weight loss and increase falls risk as we get older.
We know we always eat better when we eat with others, so organise to eat with other people. Share a meal with friends or family at least once a week, especially if you find that you are often cooking for 1.
Protein
Protein rich foods are important for maintaining muscle mass and strength, something that declines as we age.
Protein-rich foods include: nuts and seeds, legumes like lentils, chickpeas, beans, tofu, dairy foods and soy milk, fish and seafood, meat like beef, lamb, pork, kangaroo, chicken, duck and other game meats.
It is a good habit to include a protein-rich food at each meal and snack. For example:
Breakfast: peanut butter on toast with banana
Morning snack: dairy or soy yoghurt or fruit with nuts
Lunch: salmon and vegetable rice paper rolls
Afternoon Snack: chia pudding or roasted chickpeas
Dinner: Fritata with sweet potato, veggies, served with a salad.
Calcium
Calcium and Vitamin D work together to help maintain strong bones.
Calcium-rich foods include dairy foods, such as milk cheese, yoghurt, custard as well as the dairy alternatives which are fortified with Calcium, such as soy milk, almond milk, oat milk etc, soy yoghurts, fish with the bones like canned salmon, calcium set tofu.
We need 3 serves of dairy/dairy alternatives daily after the age of 65 years old to maintain our bone strength and density as we age.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is often referred to as the happy vitamin. It is linked with good mood but it also plays an important role with calcium for making bones strong. Our body usually makes the majority of vitamin D through UV light exposure. To ensure you are making Vitamin D, direct sun exposure on bare skin is required i.e. not through glass.
As we get into the golden years, in our region, we need a minimum of 15 minutes per day in summer and 30 minutes per day in winter, wearing shorts and t-shirt to give you your daily dose of Vitamin D.
You may need to soak up more rays if you are more covered up, have health conditions that impact vitamin D absorption and creation, have darker skin, or do not go outside every day.
If you are concerned you are not getting enough Vitamin D you can ask your GP for a blood test to check your levels and supplementation is always an option.
Hydration
Keeping hydrated is also important to prevent falls as we age.
Drinking water at each meal and snack time is a great habit to start and carry on through to your golden years. Use lrge glasses for water and build up slowly over the day if you need to increase your water intake to helap you rbody re-learn how to hold on to it to reduce excess toilet trips.
Remember soda water, tea and coffee also count for fluids.
Physical activity
For people over the age of 65 years, the exercise guidelines recommend 30 minutes of moderate to high intensity physical activity preferably every day, including strength or weight bearing activities 2 days a week and limit sedentary activity.
If someone is diagnosed with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, osteoporosis, cancer, mental health condition or any kind of chronic disease, exercise is now being prescribed as treatment as it is now known to be an important way of managing and preventing progression of the condition in conjunction with or sometimes as a replacement to medicine.
The best kind of activities to do is the ones that you enjoy and I recommend choosing 3 each week. There is so much out there to explore and see what the right fit is for you including catered to the older active adult. From chair yoga to dancing, from Park run (or walk) to the gym, bushwalking to circus.
The biggest barrier I find is people being afraid to try something new, worried they will do it wrong or make a fool out of themselves. Especially when our bodies do not do what they used to be able to do or are just not fit for the new type of activity, yet!
We need to break down this barrier, big time. As kids we are told practise makes perfect. The more you practise, the easier and more enjoyable it will be. Remember persistence pays off and patience is a virtue!
So, go on. Get out there and find something that you will love and that keeps you moving well into your golden years!
