Meer bewegen om gezond ouder te worden.*
Bewegen is net zo iets als spinazie. Iedereen weet dat het gezond is en toch doen veel mensen niets met die kennis. Onderzoekers hebben nu vastgesteld dat senioren, ook zij die al jaren niets aan bewegen deden, al snel zowel de fysieke als ook de psychologische voordelen ervaarden als ze regelmatig wat gingen bewegen. Door te gaan bewegen verlengt men niet alleen het leven doch ook de kwaliteit van het leven wordt beter. Het bewegen is niet alleen lopen maar ook huishoudelijke werkzaamheden en tuinieren. Het meest opvallende was dat mensen psychisch beter functioneerde en meer zelfvertrouwen kregen.
Do
exercise and you will live longer and enjoy better health as well
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 current issue of 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.
(December
2005)
