DPG11 Healthy Aging (HA)

Hi Healthy Aging DPG members! I'm an RDN and working on updating an older adult nutrition resource. We (Dairy Council of CA) developed a handout designed to support conversation about how balanced nutrition supports aging. We have a print and PDF version for health professionals to share with patients: Dairy Supports Healthy Aging.

 

We've received feedback from providers working with different patient demographics that PDFs aren't mobile friendly and feel this would hold true for older adults. We would love your feedback on what type of resources are most useful for patient communications to encourage healthier eating choices in addition to the traditional print copy. What works well for you or what ideas do you have to make non-printed resources more practical and user-friendly? We brainstormed a few ideas and welcome your agreement or other ideas:

 

• PowerPoint slide deck for a class
• Short videos
• Webpage with the content
• Concise nutrition messaging to add to patient note summaries
• A printable page linking to a variety of resources through QR codes
• PDF work fine

 

Please feel free to reply to this thread with any thoughts, thank you!

------------------------------
Maria Frye
Los Angeles CA
------------------------------

Maria, 

Here are some more thoughts:

1) More pictures, less words. Whether digital or print, Pictures speak a thousand words! I don't mean icons or symbols but representative photos or cartoons. Instead of telling people to get three servings of dairy daily using written text, we dietitians need to do more show-and-tell to be more effective.  Use pictures or animations to demonstrate how to include more dairy into a day. For example, if we can show yogurt being served as a dessert at the end of a meal or as an afternoon snack enjoyed with grandkids; show cheese grated over cooked vegetables or cheese sticks being served as an afternoon snack with fruit, or show  cafe-au-lait which takes their usual coffee (or tea) beverage and bumps it up with eight ounces of milk and gets served over ice, or show someone adding milk to a can of soup and having some of it with the rest of their lunch, or cooking hot cereal like farina or rice or oatmeal in milk instead of in water. Helping older adults to see themselves doing what we're teaching them is empowering to them. Lately, I find free photography for my educational materials at https://www.pexels.com/

2) I'm curious about not using PDFs. I have been using PowerPoint slides converted to PDF for all my rural older adults community education Zoom programs for several years and no participants have ever said they couldn't open them in their email. I haven't found much response to QR codes and it could be because older adults already have less hand finger dexterity so fumbling around with holding the camera angle just right, etc. may be more trouble than they think it's worth.

3) Many older adults get A LOT of their (mis)information from YouTube. If you can leverage a presence there, that could give you a higher return on your time investment than anything else you do.

Hoping these thoughts are helpful to you.

------------------------------
Jean Copeland, RD, CSG
Cardiovascular Medicine
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon N.H. jean.m.copeland@hitchcock.org
------------------------------

Thank you, Jean for your helpful insights!! We greatly appreciate it!

------------------------------
Maria Frye
Fresno CA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Apr 22, 2026 07:56 AM
From: Jean Copeland
Subject: Feedback types of resources useful for patient communications

Maria, 

Here are some more thoughts:

1) More pictures, less words. Whether digital or print, Pictures speak a thousand words! I don't mean icons or symbols but representative photos or cartoons. Instead of telling people to get three servings of dairy daily using written text, we dietitians need to do more show-and-tell to be more effective.  Use pictures or animations to demonstrate how to include more dairy into a day. For example, if we can show yogurt being served as a dessert at the end of a meal or as an afternoon snack enjoyed with grandkids; show cheese grated over cooked vegetables or cheese sticks being served as an afternoon snack with fruit, or show  cafe-au-lait which takes their usual coffee (or tea) beverage and bumps it up with eight ounces of milk and gets served over ice, or show someone adding milk to a can of soup and having some of it with the rest of their lunch, or cooking hot cereal like farina or rice or oatmeal in milk instead of in water. Helping older adults to see themselves doing what we're teaching them is empowering to them. Lately, I find free photography for my educational materials at https://www.pexels.com/

2) I'm curious about not using PDFs. I have been using PowerPoint slides converted to PDF for all my rural older adults community education Zoom programs for several years and no participants have ever said they couldn't open them in their email. I haven't found much response to QR codes and it could be because older adults already have less hand finger dexterity so fumbling around with holding the camera angle just right, etc. may be more trouble than they think it's worth.

3) Many older adults get A LOT of their (mis)information from YouTube. If you can leverage a presence there, that could give you a higher return on your time investment than anything else you do.

Hoping these thoughts are helpful to you.

------------------------------
Jean Copeland, RD, CSG
Cardiovascular Medicine
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
Lebanon N.H. jean.m.copeland@hitchcock.org
------------------------------