My mother is about 5' and is losing weight because she's not eating very much. She's hard of hearing and lost her hearing aide so I communicate with a white board. If I ask her if she would like to eat (I show her two items) she'll nod her head yes. But when I put the food in front of her she starts to play with it, or simply stares at it and leaves it. I throw out a lot of food so I was wondering if anyone has a similar problem?
Is she having problems chewing, swallowing the food?
You can start by trying to cut the food into small bits, if that does not work then try pureeing the food, do it individually so that the veggies are veggies, meat is meat..
Supplementing with some of the high protein drinks like Ensure, Boost and many of the others.
And at some point you just give up on the "balanced meal" and go for calories if she has no other medical problems that would be a concern if high calorie, high sugar foods are consumed.
Try many small meals or snacks during the day rather than 3 .
My Husbands best time of day was the morning so I started giving him his highest calorie meal in the morning and offered other things throughout the day.
I had a client with LBD who always wanted to eat, but when I'd bring her the food she'd look at it and say either she didn't like it or wasn't hungry. She couldn't feed herself certain foods anymore.
When I gave her foods she could pick up with her hands to eat and drinks served in a sippy-cup instead of a regular glass, she did very well for a long time.
Try giving her some small, easy to eat finger foods and see how she does.