FACTORS OF NUTRITIONAL HEALTH-SEEKING BEHAVIORS - FINDINGS FROM THE GEORGIA CENTENARIAN STUDY

Health-seeking behaviors are described by Harris and Guten (1979) as a ny behavior of an individual that promotes, protects, or maintains one 's health, regardless of actual or perceived health status. The purpos e of this study was to determine if nutritional health-seeking behavio r (Bausell, 1986) comprised one or more factors for older adults (N = 256). Participants were in their 60s (n = 90), 80s (n = 91), and 100(n = 75). Exploratory factor analysis indicated that nutritional healt h-seeking behavior items formed two factors: avoid (i.e., avoiding unh ealthy nutritional behavior) and seek (i.e., attempting or seeking hea lthy nutritional behavior), Multiple regression analysis revealed that risk factors for poor nutritional health-seeking behaviors in older a dults include advanced age, low economic resources, and male gender. P rotective factors included the personality factors of self-discipline, enthusiasm, sensitivity, and warmth.