Departments
Health Matters
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Week of 26 March 1999 |
Vol. II, No. 28 |
Health Matters
Keeping on the move: seniors and exercise
My children keep telling me to get out and exercise. As a senior citizen, what are the benefits to me of exercising, and do you have any tips to get started?
Your children are right -- you should get out and exercise. Many experts believe that exercise is the single most important thing an individual can do to improve his or her health. Despite this fact, nearly 60 percent of Americans are not regularly active, and 25 percent are not active at all. Unfortunately, this inactivity increases with age, and by the age of 75, the U.S. Surgeon General reports, one in three men and one in two women engage in no physical activity whatsoever.
"Exercise has a broader impact on a person's health than almost any other lifestyle factor," says Alan Jette, dean of Boston University's Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and a professor of social and behavioral science at the Boston University School of Public Health.
Regardless of age, says Jette, physical activity helps the body maintain, repair, and improve itself. It has an array of positive benefits, including:
- strengthening the heart and lungs;
- lowering blood pressure;
- protecting against adult-onset diabetes;
- keeping joints, tendons, and ligaments flexible;
- maintaining strength and muscle mass;
- increasing balance and lessening the risk of falls;
- helping to maintain body composition, with a higher proportion of muscle than fat;
- reducing the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and hypertension; and
- promoting psychological health, particularly self-esteem.
For seniors, says Jette, exercise, as well as enhancing the quality of life, has the added benefit of moderately increasing longevity. The five ingredients to physical fitness are: cardiorespiratory endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition. Cardiorespiratory endurance is the ability to deliver oxygen and nutrients to tissues and remove wastes over sustained periods of time. Muscular strength is the ability of a muscle to exert force for a brief period of time, while muscular endurance is a muscle's (or group of muscles') ability to sustain repeated contractions or to continue to apply force against a fixed object. Flexibility allows joints and muscles to move through their full range of motion. Body composition is the makeup of the body in terms of lean mass (muscle, bone, vital tissue, and organs) and fat.
Different exercises affect different aspects of health, and Jette recommends a combination of aerobic, resistive strength, and flexibility exercises. He says that seniors, especially those with a known medical condition, should seek the advice of an exercise expert and their physician before beginning a vigorous exercise program.
Some beneficial -- and popular -- forms of exercise for seniors are brisk walking, swimming, jogging, bicycling, cross-country skiing, golfing, and using exercise machines. Whether age or a sedentary lifestyle is to blame, seniors are more susceptible to exercise-related injuries than the general population. To prevent injuries, individuals should start slowly and gradually build up to more strenuous exercises. In the first Surgeon General's Report on Physical Activity and Health, published in 1996, then acting Surgeon General Audrey F. Manley recommended a minimum of 30 minutes of moderate exercise on most days of the week for seniors who have built up their physical activity level.
Jette says that family members play a key role in getting seniors started on, and committed to, exercise programs. "Children of seniors can be helpful by encouraging their parents to participate in an exercise regimen," he says. "Quite often, however, the opposite occurs. Children feel their parents are more at risk when exercising and suggest inactivity instead. That is very bad advice. Everyone, including senior citizens, should be exercising more."
"Health Matters" is written in cooperation with staff members of Boston Medical Center. For more information about senior citizens and exercise or other health matters, call 638-6767.