Meal delivery – Healthy nutrition opens doors

Reaching vulnerable populations can be challenging, even when help is offered. Mobility issues may leave some older adults housebound, limiting their ability to engage with their community. For others, skepticism about the effectiveness of health programs can prevent them from participating, even when these programs are designed to improve their well-being. Additionally, providing assistance can be especially difficult if an individual is facing housing insecurity. Meal delivery programs can offer a valuable solution for ensuring more individuals receive essential nutrition and support.

Positive impacts of meal delivery

Many of our health plan and community agency partners are finding home-delivered meals can successfully open doors to staying connected. Along with being a vital link to the outside world, meal delivery can offer balanced, nutritious meals directly to aging adults and other vulnerable individuals and help ensure they receive the vitamins, minerals and calories needed to maintain their health.

Reducing diet-related disease

Approximately 95% of older adults have at least one chronic health condition and nearly 80% have two or more. With poor nutrition being one of the main lifestyle risk factors for chronic conditions, it’s important to find ways to improve access to quality nutrition and reduce health care costs through the management of chronic conditions. Medically tailored, home-delivered meals can help reduce malnutrition, improve nutrient intake and help people learn to eat for their chronic conditions.

Helping to address loneliness

Meal delivery can also address another key social determinant of health: loneliness. Research shows social isolation and higher mortality are often linked. People who are socially isolated and experiencing loneliness have a higher rate of mortality, including an increased risk of death from cancer and cardiovascular disease.

According to a study, home-delivered meal clients reported feeling safer at home and were more socially engaged because of regular meal delivery visits. The rate was especially high for rural recipients and those with three or more activities of daily living (ADL) limitations. Just seeing someone even once a week helped them feel more connected, reduced feelings of isolation and helped foster a sense of community and support.

Connecting with aging adults through home-delivered meals can serve as a point of contact for referrals to nutrition counseling, telehealth services, educational materials and other beneficial programs that can support their mental and physical health.

Making the most of a meal delivery program

At Mom’s Meals^®, we find that adding a meal program can increase individuals’ overall willingness to engage. Here are some ideas for getting the most mileage from your meals program:

1. For members who may move a lot and don’t have secure housing, offering meal delivery can be a good mechanism for ensuring you always have their up-to-date information.
2. Offering meal programs to individuals with chronic health conditions — such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease — can help increase participation rates in other health management programs. This is especially true because of the new flexibility added as part of the CMS 2020 Call Letter for Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI), so incorporating this type of program has never been easier.
3. Combining a meal delivery program with other supportive offerings, such as nutrition education and/or HbA1c monitoring, compounds the positive impact.

Mom’s Meals can help

It is our mission to improve life through better nutrition at home. With delicious home-delivered meals, we make it easy and convenient for people to get the nutrition they need to help them live independently and stay healthy. We offer more than 60 meal choices and nine condition-specific menus to support people living with chronic conditions including heart disease and diabetes. In addition, all meals are designed by registered dietitians and crafted by professional chefs in USDA- and FDA- inspected facilities, providing the highest level of compliance with federal regulations governing food production.

Our compassionate customer care team plays a critical role in engaging with our customers regularly. From providing assistance and taking meal orders to ensuring meal satisfaction and making friendly conversation, we treat customers like they are part of our family. Our delivery drivers are also creating a much-needed human connection with our customers — whether it’s a smile and a wave “hello” or a deeper conversation.