Do elderly people view sweets and junk food as a source of energy? What would be a more proper diet?

I am 80. I honestly don't want anyone messing with my diet if nothing is wrong. Energy fine. Check. No illnesses other than age related arthritis. Check. Doing fine, thanks. Don't need advice on what I eat and when necessarily, unless my Doc intervenes and notices something off.
Always with a sensitive gut, in old age there are things I LOVE that it simply doesn't tolerate. The occ. glass of red wine, the bag of potato chips, the popcorn, the huge bowl of ice cream: they are all OUT at this point, simply not tolerated. But maintaining weight where it should be, no swollen things, get my yearly physical.
Only my opinion. I honestly think our kids shouldn't be meddling in our dietary habits unless it's a problem. We may be aging, but we aren't children.

Im probably the odd ball here but if they are in their right mind and depending on their age, I say let them live their life the way they want to. If they know what they are doing then ket them be. I take care of a 89 year old. He still knows what he is doing and if he want ice cream all day, then ice cream it is. He is 89 and I'm here not to tell him what to do. He is living out his life in way that makes him happy and that's how it should be for all elderly.

I ask a few rhetorical questions:
Does she have dementia? If so, this terminal disease will take her no matter what they eat or don't eat. Why prolong their suffering with salmon and kale? Unless they like to eat that.
How would you feel to have someone shame you for drinking alcohol or cheese cake or an extra bowl of ice cream?
My 90+ yo parents have few joys in life left since friends have died, loss of car, loss of independence, etc....why not stop all food or other conflict and just let them enjoy what little time they have left?
Bless you for trying to keep them healthy but really ...is it vital to their happiness and comfort. Nope not really.

Let's not forget that elderly will loose their sense of taste, except for sweets.

I remember my Mom shopping list of chocolate muffins, blueberry pie, ice cream, Little Debbie's, Fig Newton's, soft cookies, etc. along with good food items.

Thus, let an elder eat what they want. If they ask for ice cream for breakfast, ask them if they want one scoop or two.

The soda would be my concern. Its not good for anyone and has mostly sugar. As said Seniors tend to loose taste. Sugar seems to be the one thing they do taste and its instantly gratifying.

Sugar is an energy source. The problem is its a fast high and then it plummets and causes you to then be down with no energy.

You don't say how old Mom is. Seems like she has set in her head that to be able to get anything done she needs something sweet. Not sure how your going to break that thought. I found to eat right you have to be willing to cook it. If Mom lives alone, thats hard. I would get her to cut down on the sodas. One a day to start. Then work on the snacks. But, as a 72 yr old I am very aware I don't eat right but I also do not want to eat Vegan, which is what my daughter is and preaches plant based. I eat very little and when I do eat I want to be satisfied and not satisfied eating certain "plants". 😊

Taste for sweets is the longest-lasting taste, so sweets may become more appealing as sensitivity to other tastes weakens. The temporary energy boost triggered by eating sweets will be followed by a bigger energy crash as the body ramps up its reaction to the sweets. Then the person may go back for more sweets to re-boot the energy--an endless cycle.
It may be hard to get your mother to reverse this habit, but begin to wean her off of the sugar,-boost track. Include some form of lean protein with every snack or sugared soda to "balance" the sugar: chicken, low-fat cheese--some kind of protein without its own sugar. The combination will help keep her energy more even and less reliant on temporary sugar highs.

Here's my advice: leave your mother alone to eat whatever she wants & to do as she sees fit. Which is what she's going to do REGARDLESS of what 'nutritionist' you feel she should see for advice! Sugar DOES give a burst of energy, with a crash afterward, which requires another hit of sugar for another burst of energy, and so on and so forth.

You can harp on this subject until the cows come home OR you can have a good relationship with your mother, likely not both.

Some people swear by Energy Drinks to give them a boost. They're no good for one's 'health' either. Which isn't going to stop the Energy Drink crowd from drinking them.

In my view, we humans each have a certain number of days on this earth. When that number is up, we're done. Whether we eat bacon & eggs every day or drink 2 cans of 'Coca Cola'. Think of it this way: at least those Coca-Cola's don't contain cocaine in them anymore! Mom's ahead of the game from that perspective at least! :)

I know you probably didn't mean it this way, but your question is sort of clueless. "Elderly" people really only have one thing in common: they have lived a long time. Your judgements on your mother's eating habits are based on your own opinions of the "right" way to eat, not a careful analysis of her overall diet. You have stated that she eats her meals. If there are no particular problems in her health that could be caused by her dietary choices, perhaps you should leave her to make her own choices.

You might consider that part of the decades-long experience of "the elderly" is that just about every food you can name, including fats and sugars, has at one time or another been a "bad" food or a "good" food. Dietary recommendations from "experts" swing on a pendulum between opposing points of view. In general, if a person does eat vegetables, fruits, grains, and proteins in some sort of balance it is not inappropriate to also include some treat foods that are not highly nutritious.

Even in the case of diabetics a sugary treat is not necessarily a bad thing. I rarely eat sugary foods, they don't appeal to me, so I rarely indulge in them even though I am not diabetic. My mother was diabetic but had a real sweet tooth. She always had candy around and would eat more of it than my sisters and I thought was good for her. However, she lived almost to her 97th birthday and her diabetes was not a part of her causes of death. My sisters and I did make/buy for her a few candies and cookies that did not have much sugar in them but she preferred the candies of her youth. Mostly she wouldn't eat the non-sweets that we tried to provide. Her doctor told her that if she ate her treats after a good meal with protein and vegetables, and kept the treats small, she was ok.

Ultimately, my sisters and I shut up about the "junk" foods and let her enjoy those things that were still left to her as her ability to walk disappeared, then her hearing and eyesight diminished. When she was in hospice I made some of her favorite foods for her: deviled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches prepared on a panini maker, and followed up with her favorite mint patties. In her final years food was one of the few things that she could enjoy as much as ever. Her tastes did narrow, but she persisted in eating the things that had given her pleasure all her life.

I think that your mother probably does not need to be told to avoid what you consider to be "junk food." She may need to be told that you accept her as she is and that you want to help her feel as well as she can. You may find some alternate snacks that she will enjoy, but she will try them more readily if she does not feel that you are passing judgement on her when you suggest them. It works a lot better to bring a little gift of a snack and tell her how much you love it than to just tell her to change.

By the way, I clearly remember ads that ran in the '50's and '60's that proclaimed "sugar has just 16 calories per teaspoon--and it's all energy." In the same era nutritionists recommended that children have a cookie and milk in the afternoon for an "energy boost" to sustain play until dinner time. The English custom of tea derives from much the same thought. Times change, then change again. It is not wise to think that anything from the current thoughts about a good life are unique to this decade--or will stay the same in the coming decades.

Have you tried to get her to eat things like black bean brownies, high protein healthy cookies like they sell in health food stores. Most sodas have a version made with Splenda etc. There's also sugar free candies made with Splenda. You might try subbing some of those out and not tell her and just see what happens.

Oh gosh this is difficult as we want to help loved ones however in this case you say she does eat healthy meals and only has some amount of sweets, she isn’t a child and so this isn’t a matter of her doing something that’s a danger where you would need to intervene. It’s something surprisingly common among adult children to view their senior parent as a child but that itself isn’t good for her to be treated like a child although your motive is to help the solution isn’t to recruit other people to lecture her about her diet. Her diet sounds ok from what you said, most people eat some amount of sweets as long as she’s eating some healthy meals abd you said she is so let it go - if you like you could sometimes make her lower sugar cookies or the like ( no lecturing though about it just sometimes bringing her healthy snacks is the only thing that would be appropriate)