Retirement and Physical Activity: The Opportunity of a Lifetime or the Beginning of the End?

Meanings Attributed to Physical Activity and Changes in Self-Reported and Accelerometer-Measured Physical Activity among Recent Retirees

Retirement poses opportunities and challenges for maintaining and adopting physically active habits, which may have major implications for health and functional ability in later life. Qualitative studies suggest that a broad range of meanings of physical activity should be considered when promoting physical activity among retirees. The current study utilized the Physical Activity Relationship (PAR) approach to examine the importance of meanings attributed to physical activity and their associations with physical activity over time. A total of 230 recently retired participants (65.2 years old, 83% women) responded to a 54-item inventory assessing the importance of meanings attributed to physical activity at baseline. Eight meaning dimensions were identified through exploratory factor analysis. Differences in their importance across gender and occupational background were examined using t-tests and ANOVA. Associations between meaning dimensions and self-reported and accelerometer-measured physical activity over 12 months were examined with general linear models. Dimensions defined as Physical Fitness, Positive Mood, and Belonging were positively associated with changes in self-reported and accelerometer-measured physical activity. Additionally, the importance of several meaning dimensions varied across occupational background. In conclusion, physical activity promotion among retirees should focus on physical fitness, positive mood, and social belonging. Furthermore, meanings attributed to physical activity may vary across occupational backgrounds.

Communicating with older people about physical activity

OBJECTIVE

Little is known about how to effectively encourage higher levels of activity among older people. This study tested the effectiveness of a public service advertisement designed according to recommendations for communicating with older audiences and featuring five types of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity: tennis, line dancing, cycling, swimming and jogging.

METHODS

A survey administered to 1,200 Australians aged 50+ years assessed effects of the public service advertisement on: motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic); perceived believability, relevance, and effectiveness; and feelings elicited (e.g. interest, hope, guilt). Open-ended questions enabled respondents to describe aspects of the ad they considered to be most and least effective.

RESULTS

Moderate to high scores were obtained on the motivation measures and the ad evaluation criteria of perceived effectiveness, likeability, believability and personal relevance. Mean scores for the feelings measures were generally low, with the exception of the positive feelings of being interested, inspired, hopeful and determined.

CONCLUSIONS

The results suggest physical activity promotion ads can be motivating across age and socioeconomic subgroups of older people. Implications for public health: Ads aiming to encourage older people to be more physically active may be accepted and effective if they depict everyday older people enjoying a range of relevant activities.

The Relevance of Diet, Physical Activity, Exercise, and Persuasive Technology in the Prevention and Treatment of Sarcopenic Obesity in Older Adults

The aging population faces two conditions that threaten healthy aging: high fat mass (obesity) and low muscle mass and function (sarcopenia). The combination of both-referred to as sarcopenic obesity-synergistically increases the risk of adverse health outcomes. The two conditions often co-occur because they reinforce each other and share common etiologies, including poor nutrition and inactivity. All aging people are at risk of gaining weight and losing muscle mass and could benefit from improvements in physical activity, exercise and dietary intake. one specific window of opportunity is during the transient time of retirement, as older adults already need to restructure their daily activities. It is key to change lifestyle behavior in a sustainable manner, providing scientifically proven, personalized, and acceptable principles that can be integrated in daily life. Health technologies (e.g., applications) can provide promising tools to deliver personalized and appealing lifestyle interventions to a large group of people while keeping health care costs low. Several studies show that health technologies have a strong positive effect on physical activity, exercise and dietary intake. Specifically, health technology is increasingly applied to older people, although strong evidence for long term effects in changing lifestyle behavior is generally lacking. Concluding, technology could play an important role in the highly warranted prevention of sarcopenic obesity in older adults. Although health technology seems to be a promising tool to stimulate changes in physical activity, exercise and dietary intake, studies on long lasting effects and specifically targeted on older people around the time of retirement are warranted.

Adaptation to Athletic Retirement and Perceptions About Aging: A Qualitative Study of Retired Olympic Athletes

Self-perceptions about aging have implications for health and well-being; however, less is known about how these perceptions influence adaptation to major life transitions. The goal of this study was to examine how high-performance athletes' perceptions about aging influenced their adaptation to athletic retirement. In-depth interviews conducted with 24 retired Olympic athletes using thematic analysis yielded three key themes: (a) perceptions about aging influenced participants' postretirement exercise habits, (b) perceptions about aging motivated participants to engage in civic activities, and (c) participants who lacked formative perceptions about aging associated their athletic retirement with their own lost sense of purpose. These findings provide evidence that perceptions about aging influence athletes' adaptation to retirement by directing their subsequent engagement in postretirement activities. Furthermore, this research highlights theoretical implications for the literature regarding embodied processes, retirement transitions, role models, and adaptation to new physical states.