WASHINGTON – More than 5 million elderly citizens suffer from hunger in the United States, a number that is on the rise, according to a new study.

The study, produced by Meals on Wheels, a nonprofit program that provides hot food to low-income elderly and disabled citizens, spurred Democratic Maine Gov. John Baldacci to announce Wednesday a new “March for Meals” campaign at the State House.

“This aging population presents many challenges for our state and our nation, including ensuring that no senior citizen be at risk of being hungry,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member of the Senate’s Special Committee on Aging, which on Wednesday heard the results of the study.

“It is important that Congress anticipate the growing concern of senior hunger and continue to support programs, such as Meals on Wheels, the Food Stamp Program and the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, that are intended to combat hunger and ensure that some of our nation’s most vulnerable citizens have access to quality, nutritious meals,” Collins said.

By 2025, when all of the baby boom generation will be above age 60, almost 10 million American senior citizens will experience hunger, a figure that is 75 percent higher than in 2005, according to the study. That number may be even higher, as fuel prices and food and health care costs continue to rise, James Weill, president of the Food and Research and Action Center, a nonprofit organization that works to strengthen public-private partnerships, told the senators.

“When people face this type of crunch, a ‘heat or eat’ dilemma or a ‘medicine-or-food’ choice, often good nutrition suffers,” Weill said. In return, these elderly citizens are more susceptible to diseases like diabetes and obesity, which can spur other health problems and additional costs.

“Knowledge of these issues is particularly pressing in order to best plan for the upcoming increase of seniors due to the aging of baby boomers,” testified James Ziliak, the director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky and the lead researcher for the study.

The number of elderly Maine residents is growing faster than any other age group. From 1999 to 2025 there is expected to be a 97 percent increase in 65- to 74-year-olds and a 55 percent increase in 75- to 84-year-olds, according to a 2006 study by the Blaine House Conference on Aging. By 2025, one in five Mainers will be over the age of 65, reported a 2007 study by the University of Maine’s Center on Aging. The elderly in Maine had a poverty rate higher than 10 percent in 2000, the Blaine House study said.

As Maine’s elderly population rises, the number of elderly Mainers going hungry is also increasing, Baldacci said as he kicked off the “March for Meals” campaign with the purpose of raising awareness of elderly hunger problems and encouraging more funding and volunteers.

“By providing meals and other nutrition services to those seniors, senior nutrition programs enable those individuals to live independently in their homes and avoid premature institutionalization,” Baldacci said.

Five agencies help to distribute the Meals on Wheels program in Maine, serving more than 5,800 senior citizens and disabled adults combined. The average age of customers served by Meals on Wheels in Maine is 80 years old, said Laurence Gross, director of the Southern Maine Agency on Aging, one of the five agencies that participate in the program. The majority of Maine’s elders live on incomes of less than $15,000 a year, according to Maine’s Office of Elderly Services.

“In addition to providing a well-balanced and nutritious meal, seniors overwhelmingly tell us that the daily contact by the volunteer who delivers their meal is a great reassurance and welcome social interaction,” Gross told the senators. “Often the Meals on Wheels volunteer is the only person a homebound senior will see every day.”

Before Betty Goodwin of Bangor and her late husband signed up for the state’s version of the program, Meals for Maine, they needed to decide between food and medication. The $10 a month she received in food stamps was not enough, and because she’s in a wheel chair, she had trouble getting to the grocery store and preparing meals.

Since signing up for the program, Goodwin said, her health has improved and she has lost 50 pounds. The hot meal she receives from Meals for Maine is the one hot meal she has each day.

“The meals are delicious,” said Goodwin. “The veal parmesan tastes better than what I could get at the Olive Garden.”

Goodwin also called the volunteers “wonderful.” She has three cats and the Meals for Maine volunteers check on them as well. When Goodwin’s husband died, the volunteers were a “shoulder to cry on” in the days and weeks after his death.

“That meant a lot to me,” said Goodwin. “I can’t praise Meals for Maine enough.”

Despite the success Goodwin has had, the number of people helped by federally funded nutrition programs declined by 800,000 from 1995 to 2006, said the Food and Research and Action Center’s Weill.

This decline is attributed partly to senior citizens’ hesitation in joining such programs. In order to encourage elderly citizens to sign up for such programs, legislators are considering changes to the food stamp program, which many elderly citizens use in conjunction with programs like Meals on Wheels. In 2005, 31 percent of senior citizens received food stamps, compared to the 60 percent for non-elderly adults and 88 percent for children, said Kate Houston, deputy undersecretary of food, nutrition and consumer services in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The food stamp program is a part of the Farm Bill, which is being considered by Congress. Provisions in the bill would boost food stamp benefits for the elderly, make more seniors eligible and reduce barriers that impede eligible seniors from participating.

Some senior citizens don’t participate in the program because of the confusing paperwork required and because of a stigma associated with food stamps.

“Seniors have cited worries about how they might be perceived by grocery store staff and other shoppers, and about the embarrassment they might feel if family and friends knew they received benefits,” Weill said.

As the baby boom generation ages, they may be more willing to accept help because they are more familiar with the programs and they have not confronted the Depression-era problems that their parents faced, said Ziliak of the University of Kentucky.

“The elderly by nature aren’t anxious to step up and say, ‘I’m hungry.’ I have a mother who has much pride and her pride makes her resist help,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., a member of the Special Committee on Aging. “They still think they should be doing for others.”