Exercise is a lot like spinach, everybody knows it's
good for you; yet many people still avoid it, forgoing
its potential health benefits.
But researchers at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign who study the effects of exercise on
aging point to new findings that may inspire people to
get up, get out and get moving on a regular basis. The
research team, led by kinesiology professor Edward
McAuley, found that previously sedentary seniors who
incorporated exercise into their lifestyles not only
improved physical function, but experienced
psychological benefits as well.
"The implications of our work are that not only will
physical activity potentially add years to your life as
we age, but the quality of those years is likely to be
improved by regular physical activity," McAuley said.
Results of the study appear in an article titled
"Physical Activity Enhances Long-Term Quality of Life in
Older Adults: Efficacy, Esteem and Affective
Influences," published in the Annals of Behavioral
Medicine. Co-authors with McAuley on the report are UI
kinesiology professor Robert W. Motl; psychology
professor Ed Diener; and current and former graduate
students Steriani Elavsky, Liang Hu, Gerald J. Jerome,
James F. Konopack and David X. Marquez.
The UI research indicated positive psychosocial and
cognitive outcomes - in effect, significant
quality-of-life gains - among participants who remained
physically active long after they began an initial
randomized, six-month exercise trial consisting of
walking and stretching/toning exercises. Results were
gleaned from a battery of surveys and assessments
administered at one- and five-year intervals following
the initial exercise regimen.
McCauley said the study - which assessed physical
activity levels, quality of life, physical self-esteem,
self-efficacy and affect in a large sample (174) of
adults over age 65 - is believed to be the only one to
date to examine the relationship between physical
activity and quality of life over such a long time.
"Self-efficacy," McAuley noted, can be defined as "the
belief, or self-confidence, in one's capacity to
successfully carry out a task;" while "affect" refers to
reported levels of happiness or contentment.
The researchers found that participants who continued to
be physically active a year after baseline responses
were recorded - through engagement in leisure,
occupational or home activities, such as house-cleaning
or gardening - were "fitter, had higher levels of
self-efficacy and physical self-esteem, expressed more
positive affect and reported, in turn, a better quality
of life." Increased physical activity over time, as
indicated by results of the five-year follow-up, "was
associated with greater improvements in self-esteem and
affect. Enhanced affect was, in turn, associated with
increases in satisfaction with life over time," the
researchers noted.
"Our findings are important on several fronts," McAuley
said. "First, we demonstrated that physical activity has
long-term effects on important aspects of psychosocial
functioning through its influences on self-efficacy,
quality of life and self-esteem."
"Second, there is a growing interest in the relationship
between physical activity and quality of life,
especially in older adults. However, much of this work
suggests a direct relationship between the two. Our work
takes the approach, and the data support it, that
physical activity influences more global aspects of
quality of life through its influence on more proximal
physical and psychological factors such as affect,
self-efficacy and health status."
A related, two-year study conducted in McAuley's lab
looked at the roles played by physical activity, health
status and self-efficacy in determining "global quality
of life," or satisfaction with life among older adults.
The research focused on a different sample of 249 older
black and white women. Results of that study will be
published in an article titled "Physical Activity and
Quality of Life in Older Adults: Influence of Health
Status and Self-Efficacy" in a forthcoming edition of
the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.
In that study, the researchers tested three potentially
competing models of the physical
activity/quality-of-life relationship and ultimately
concluded that their findings "offer a strong
theoretical foundation for understanding physical
activity and quality-of-life relationships in older
adults."
McAuley said the study's results confirm earlier
findings by other researchers suggesting "changes in
levels of functioning in older adults with chronic
conditions were not predicted simply by health status or
disease state, but also by physical activity and
self-efficacy."
In other words, he said, there is a tendency among
adults with lower self-expectations of their physical
abilities to give up - to reduce the number of
activities they engage in as well as the degree of
effort they expend toward that end.
"These reductions, in turn, provide fewer opportunities
to experience successful, efficacy-enhancing behaviors
leading to further reductions in efficacy," McAuley
said. "Our data would suggest that such declines are
likely to lead to subsequent reductions in health status
and, ultimately, quality of life."
Co-authors of the study with McAuley are Motl;
kinesiology and psychology professor Karl R. Rosengren;
and graduate students Konopack, Shawna E. Doerksen and
Katherine S. Morris. The research was funded by grants
from the National Institute on Aging.
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References:
worldhealth.net
National Institute on Aging
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