Elderly Women, Exercise and Healthy Aging

Abstract

The persistent view of old age as a time for accepting an inevitable decline in health and vigour continues to shape the exercise patterns of elderly women, despite rapidly accumulating evidence that what has formerly been perceived as "normal aging" is, in part, the deficit of disuse and inactivity. While the risks associated with increased physical activity are not to be overlooked, more attention is being given to the overwhelming benefits of adequate exercise for the elderly, both in terms of short and long-term contributions to enhanced physical, social and emotional well-being. Conditioned to believe that being old and female is a sort of "double jeopardy" requiring restraint in physical activity, elderly women have been slow to respond to the new view of exercise as a crucial part of healthy aging. So long as elderly women do not readily perceive the advantages to be accrued from regular exercise patterns and do not believe they are capable of vigourous physical activity, government policies and plans to disseminate information about health and exercise are unlikely to generale large scale action toward health promotion.