What is SO-NUTS?
The SO-NUTS project is targeted at people in and around retirement, who are at high risk to get sarcopenic obesity. We focus on persons who will retire within less than a year or those who already have retired within the span of 10 years and have a BMI of >25. We have decided on this target audience for several reasons.
Major public health impact
The population of retirees keeps on growing. We provide tools, advice, and best practices to guide people through the hectic transition from working life towards retirement. It is important to note that participants do not have to be sarcopenically obese in order to improve their lifestyle with the help of SO-NUTS. In fact, anyone can benefit from a balanced diet and improved physical activity. The combination of a large target population with a variety of health benefits will lead to significant impact on the public health.
Period of changes in lifestyle behaviour
Low physical activity and poor dietary intake are the main risk factors for sarcopenia, obesity and sarcopenic obesity. These behaviours may specifically change at retirement with severe implications for health in later life.
Perfect window of opportunity
All elderly persons are at risk of sarcopenia, obesity or sarcopenic obesity and could benefit from lifestyle interventions. Yet, one specific window of opportunity to improve lifestyle behaviour is during the transient time of retirement, in which older adults already need to restructure their activities of daily living. Indeed, it is shown that dietary interventions among adults of retirement age are often efficient on both short-term and long-term periods. In addition, with current life expectancy, adopting a healthy lifestyle around the age of retirement offers sufficient time to prevent unhealthy ageing and dependency in later life for a substantial period of time.
