We've all seen the articles and studies showing us that exercise is essential to healthy aging, along with photos of older people hiking in the mountains, riding their bikes, doing laps in a pool, or some other vigorous kind of activity. But what about people with disabilities, chronic health conditions, or other challenges? What about those who might feel intimidated or discouraged by those kind of images of aging? Or people who have lived a sedentary life for so long that it seems too difficult to change? Should they just give up?
A study/survey released in June shows that even slight changes in the way we move around can have significant benefits and that we don't have to become hikers or runners to take advantage of them.
“These findings indicate that physical activity need not be high intensity to potentially benefit various aspects of health, which have especially important public health implications as older people tend to have limited physical ability to engage in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity,” Molin Wang, an associate professor in epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and an author of the study, told the Washington Post recently.
The study/survey tracked nearly 50,000 women (from a Harvard School of Public Health Nurses’ Health Study) for 20 years and found that replacing sedentary behaviors, like watching TV or sitting at your desk in an office, with even lightest physical activities, like standing, walking, or doing chores at home, improved overall health substantially. In fact, researchers even found that replacing sedentary behaviors with sleep resulted in better health outcomes. What's more, health was affected by where people were being sedentary and what they were doing. For example, sitting and watching TV leads to greater health risks than sitting and writing or reading a book, and sitting at home on a couch is worse than sitting in an office.
While not groundbreaking, the study reinforces the idea that we don't have to climb mountains or be runners to enjoy the benefits of physical activity. And for many of us -- in Virginia, 2.1 million adults (more than 1 in 3) have prediabetes, and 90% don’t know they have it --- it could be essential in avoiding serious health problems.
That's the idea behind JABA's Active Living Every Day (ALED) program, an evidence-based program that encourages physical activity among their community center members. JABA has a Healthy Steps program, which is more like an exercise class, done with music for people of all fitness levels, but ALED focuses on identifying and overcoming barriers to exercise, increasing self-confidence, creating realistic goals and rewards, developing social support, and building more physical activity into daily activities. Studies show that ALED significantly increases moderate to vigorous physical activity and total physical activity, decreases depressive symptoms and stress, increases satisfaction with body appearance and function, and can reduce weight.
Another one of the study's authors put it bluntly.
"If you replace sedentary behaviors with any activities, I mean, even light physical activities, like standing or walking around, or doing household chores, it’s better than just being a couch potato for an extended period of time,” said Frank Hu, professor and chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
So get moving!
David McNair handles communications, media relations, and social media efforts for JABA. This article originally appeared in C-Ville Weekly.