Living alone can have tons of benefits, most especially with privacy and freedom, but it does have its downsides. As per The Guardian, living alone can result to poor health nutrition. People going solo are more likely to have poor, unhealthy diet than their co-inhabiting peers.
A team of researchers from Queensland University of Technology analysed 41 studies in order for them to investigate the correlation between "living alone and food and nutrient intake."
Their report was then published in the journal 'Nutrition Reviews'. They were able to find that: "individuals who lived on their own tend not to have adequate cooking skills or partners to help them with shopping. Men living alone were more likely to have a poor diet than women."
As per Huffington Post, one of the study's author and lecturer at the university, Katherine Hannah stated that living alone can result to poor diet due to lack of motivation to prepare one's meal.
"Our results found that people who live alone have a lower diversity of food intake and a lower consumption of some core food groups like fruits and vegetables and fish. The research suggests living alone may represent a barrier to healthy eating that is related to the cultural and social roles of food and cooking. For example, a lack of motivation and enjoyment in cooking and/or eating alone often led to people preparing simple or ready-made meals lacking key nutrients. The absence of support or encouragement to comply with healthy eating guidelines and difficulty in managing portion control were also factors influencing diet"
Hannah then added that:
"Previous research has found loneliness, for example, is a significant predictor of malnutrition in the elderly,"
Money also plays a vital role in living alone and the individual's diet. Healthy food such as fish, vegetables and fruits would easily spoil.
