In a "super-aged" society, one of the important objectives is the health of elderly people. Autonomy, more than ill health, is regarded as a good measure of elderly individuals' health status. The autonomy of elderly people is greatly influenced by their dietary habits. It is reported that sufficient protein alimentation and high dietary variety are critical for the elderly. The dietary variety of elderly adults may be influenced by both their dependency on the food industry for their diet and the accessibility of food stores. In the future, much greater dependency on processed food and an explosion in the number of elderly adults with poor access to stores in the urban area are predicted. An example of a big-city suburban housing complex shows that the dietary variety scores of elders who depend heavily on processed food and/or who have poor access to food stores are lower than those of other elders. For the food system, maintenance of health in elderly adults is desirable because this ensures a robust food market in a super-aged society. The food system should play a major role in addressing these problems.
