As a somewhat active person in my 30s, I would not find that to be a satisfying meal, but your caloric needs change throughout your life. Most adults would need roughly about a 2000 Calorie/day diet, but depending on activity level, age, gender, height, metabolism, etc. that can vary pretty widely. A larger guy living an active lifestyle may need in excess of 3000 Calories, a smaller girl with a sedentary lifestyle may only need 1800 or so.

Seniors tend to have lower caloric needs than adults, and in a nursing home setting, many of them are probably living pretty sedentary lives (many of them probably physically couldn’t be very active even if they wanted to, that’s part of why some of them are in a nursing home in the first place)

Plus many of us are accustomed to eating meals that are well in excess of what we actually need, I’m pretty sure we’ve all seen what a recommended serving size of steak looks like- 3oz, about the size of a deck of cards, I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever eaten a steak that small in my life, and I don’t purposely seek out huge steaks.

Then you also have issues with dementia patients where just getting them to eat anything at all can sometimes be an issue.

And of course, you need to be mindful of health conditions, and very healthy people don’t tend to end up in nursing homes. They may have allergies, food sensitivities, diabetes, etc. that need to be accounted for, health conditions or medications that interact with different foods, they need to be mindful of potential cross-contamination, or that a confused old person may not fully understand why they can or can’t have certain foods and may try to eat someone else’s meal that could cause them to have health issues. So a relatively bland and safe menu with carefully portioned servings kind of becomes necessary, especially when you need to be serving dozens or hundreds of people all at once every day.

And some of them just have pretty bland tastes and limited appetites, not everyone is a foodie or gourmand who loves to eat, some regard food as just a necessary fuel for them to keep living. And some people think that a bit of salt and pepper it over seasoning (my mom, who is hopefully another 20 or so years away from needing a nursing home, thinks that a McChicken is “too spicy” and would probably think this meal is great)