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How to make someone be a healthy eater?
My dad is 75 years old and he has had a poor diet for most of his life. He believes that because he goes to the gym every day, he is at the peak of condition. But for the past five years or so, he has been struggling with severe chronic constipation due to his bad eating habits. He has had colon cancer twice (both times we were lucky and the doctor cut it out before it started to spread too much) but cannot get himself to stop binging on burgers and ice cream. Over and over again, I have tried to explain to him the importance of eating fruits and vegetables. I have tried creating menus for him to follow and came up with all sorts of ideas to make this as easy as possible for him. He always agrees, but abandons the plan within 2-7 days. Part of the problem is that he also has dementia, so he always forgets. When I remind him of the agreement he made, he says, "stop telling me what to do!"
It became clear that he had no willpower to stop himself from becoming sick again. So our family made arrangements to put him on a strict daily allowance and have my mom go out and buy all of his groceries. Except that he always turns his nose up at all of the vegetable dishes she makes and runs out to get ice cream even when we give him just $5 a day. I continually remind him of the agreement he made, and he always either says he'll do better tomorrow, or he acts like he never agreed to it at all.
My mom has given up. She said that you can't force someone to want to make themselves better and it stresses her out to have to police him all the time. The truth is that he's going to kill himself with bad food and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
This is simply not acceptable to me. My dad is literally the only person I have in the world. The idea of him not being around is not imaginable. Yes I know that we all die someday. But I can't just sit by and watch him actively destroying himself. I was thinking of simply cutting him off of all money so that he can't go out and buy ANYTHING at all that he's not supposed to. But my mom said that this isn't realistic. He would need to have money on him in the event that his car broke down somewhere.
What can I do to ensure once and for all that he intakes the nutrition he needs every day to stop his colon cancer from returning?
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We only are given the ability to govern ourselves and first want to change and then carry out that change for ourselves. There never has been and never will be a way to make someone do something that is better for them if they do not have a desire within that realizes they have an issue and then the want to change. He has neither. Could someone convince you to sell your car tomorrow and do all your travel and commuting by bicycle? Many living in cities do. Or maybe a family member decides you need some toning up and drags you to the local pool every day to swim or signs you up for zumba or maybe yoga classes. They can do all that but unless you are willing to go through and do those things, you are not going to do it.
The bigger issue is his dementia. His lucid moments may still be many but at some point when he no longer recognizes any of you and doesn't recall where he lives, it is even more dangerous to him to not have a safe place to live out his life for people with dementia. I remember a dementia newspaper customer trying to pay me with a couple hundred dollar bills, having no concept of money anymore and she lived alone. I knew she had family as they'd built a walking ramp to her door and she could't navigate steps any more. But try as I might, she couldn't provide me with the name of a relative to call. this was an adult paper route, I was an adult trying to help an adult. I saw her often wandering around town, inappropriately dressed for weather in winter clothes on extremely hot days, and summer clothes during the winter and I worried for her but I was not her family. You and family may want to focus your energies on some plans for the inevitable when it comes to have plans in place. Will the family hire a caretaker to live 24/7 with him. Will family take turns rotating staying with him days here and there or just get him placed into a facility where the doors are locked and monitored so he can not just walk off and get lost? Once he is further along as mentioned so he had no recollection of what he'd prefer to eat, he will be eating whatever his caretaker or a facility for dementia patients serves him for meals. If you don't know now, you will someday realize how draining it is energy wise and emotionally to deal with a dementia patient. Its like having an adult baby, totally reliant on you for everything. Except, unlike an infant that can't crawl or walk yet, they can walk. And just like an infant, all they knew as an adult can be partially or all forgotten due to the disease, so sometimes dealing with dementia patients is more like struggling with a child at the terrible twos who is as big or bigger than you. It is sometimes more than one person can handle. It may take a team to take care of his needs in the near future. I used to be a caregiver to mostly those with mental disabilities and believe me, they can have temper tantrums of the astronomical kind, etc. I watched my mother in law deal with her mom going thru dementia. SHe now has it too. And someone my husband works with has the earlier stages, still thinking he can do everything for himself but more and more is falling on my husbands shoulders to pick up the slack when the guy continually forgets things like even the time line in which things need to get done. Its a small company and those in charge do not see the other guys problems and wouldn't believe it cus they can still look and seem to act normal in the public eye at this stage unless you spend hour after hour with them or day after day.
We even moved in with our old apt. manager friend when she was looking for roommates for the trailer park home she bought. We only lasted 3 weeks because we discovered in the first two weeks that she had dementia and how bad it was. It wasn't visible in the little chats in passing or on the way to the mail boxes. Seriously, your family needs to focus on the dementia rather than what he eats. You will lose your father from dementia long before he actually dies. The man you knew as your father will slowly slip away. I know, its sad and I hope it never happens to my loved ones, but as bad as his diet and health due to diet is, is diet hasn't killed him yet, I still believe that he may live long enough for the family to suffer seeing him as an empty shell of who he used to be. That is much much worse in what happens to you all emotionally.
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I'm sorry but there isn't really anything you can do to make a person eat the way you want them too. You can only suggest better options & hope he likes them. You could try letting him eat ice cream if he eats a salad or some veggies first.
I am a little confused. You say he has dementia & yet he is driving? He must have early stage dementia. Are you sure this diagnosis isn't what is upsetting you? Dementia is a very, very difficult thing to live with for all involved. Changing his diet won't change any of that.
I say let him eat what he wants. When his dementia progresses he won't know what he's eating so you can feed him what you want. That is just my opinion & probably not a very medically correct one.
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