Recent national attention has focused on the epidemic of childhood
obesity in the United States - certainly a serious public health concern -
but children are not the only group suffering from the consequences of
enormous portions of food, high fat snacks, and sedentary lifestyle.
"Too much food and too little physical activity is contributing to an
epidemic of "super-sized" older adults in the United
States," says Marcia Ory, Ph.D., MPH, director of the Active
for Life. National Program Office at The Texas A&M
University System Health Science Center.
According to
U.S. government surveys, 27.1 percent of adults age 50 - 64 are obese and
19.8 percent of adults 65 and older are obese. "Over the last ten
years we have seen an alarming increase in obesity among all adult age
groups," Ory notes. "Among adults age 50 to 64, the number of
people who are obese increased from 16.9 percent in 1991 to 27.1 percent
in 2001."
"If
you look at other health behaviors, specifically physical activity, you
begin to see an even grimmer picture -- 60 percent of adults are not
engaging in enough leisure time physical activity. And older adults are
the least active of all Americans," says Ory. "The irony is that
we know regular physical activity can help people maintain ideal body
weight, as well as help prevent or control other chronic diseases
including heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, and some types of
cancer."
Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that one in three
adults older than 65 report no leisure time physical activity, and more
than one in four adults age 50 to 64 report no leisure time activity.
The U.S.
Surgeon General recommends moderate physical activity for 30 minutes a day
on most days. According to the CDC, "Research has shown that healthy
lifestyles are more influential than genetic factors in helping older
people avoid the deterioration traditionally associated with aging. People
who are physically active, eat a healthy diet, do not use tobacco, and
practice other healthy behaviors reduce their risk for chronic diseases
and have half the rate of disability of those who do not."
With
funding from The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Ory is heading up Active
for Life, an initiative based at Texas A&M's School of
Rural Public Health. Active for Life is
integrating programs that have been proven effective in helping older
adults become more active into community settings such as churches,
hospitals, senior centers and fitness centers.
.
"People understand they need to be more active," comments Diane
Dowdy, Ph.D., deputy director of the Active
for Life program. "Yet the majority of people remain
sedentary. We hope to learn how a group-based behavior program and a
telephone-based coaching system might be used to help motivate mid-life
and older adults to increase the amount of physical activity they
do."
The Active
for Life program is being implemented in community settings in
California, Illinois, Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Michigan, Missouri,
North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. "People
don't need to wait for the outcome of our program to get active,"
stresses Ory. "There are excellent resources that can help, including
the AARP's Keep
Active: Get Moving at 50 Plus, the Administration on Aging USA
on the Move program, the American Heart Association's Just
Move and Choose to Move."
Other
resources suggested by Ory that offer good information on physical
activity for midlife and older adults include The National
Institute on Aging, the American
College of Sports Medicine and the American
Association for Active Lifestyles and Fitness. She also suggests that
organizations wanting to address issues related to physical activity and
older adults can find information from the Active Aging Partnership.
Information on connecting with these resources is available through the Active
for Life web site www.activeforlife.info.
"There
are a wealth of excellent programs," notes Dowdy. "The hardest
thing is getting motivated to begin a program." She offers five tips
to help people get started.
1.
Find an "exercise buddy" and set a regular time and place for
activity. It can be as simple as agreeing to meet before work for a brisk
20 minute walk each morning.
2. You
don't need to spend a lot of money to get more active. Just put on a
comfortable pair of walking shoes and take a walk in your neighborhood or
in an area shopping mall.
3. You
don't need to spend a lot of time. Just 30 minutes a day of moderate
activity on most days of the week is all that is needed to get health
benefits.
4. Set
realistic goals. If a person has been inactive, they should not begin a
fitness program by starting to jog for 30 minutes daily. Go slow. Set a
goal such as walking for ten minutes at a time, three times each day. Or
make some simple changes in daily routines like looking for the farthest
away parking space rather than the closest to the store or office.
5.
Don’t get discouraged. It is easy to get off track with an activity
program, especially when it is not yet part of a daily routine. If you get
off track -- you just begin again.
"Observances
like the International Day of Older Persons, which was established in 1990
by the United Nations General Assembly, can become trite," says Ory,
"or we can use them as opportunities to launch new, positive health
habits!"
The
Texas A&M University System Health Science Center School of Rural
Public Health is the first school of public health to focus on the
often-unique health issues and needs of rural populations. The mission of
the School of Rural Public Health is to improve the health of communities
with emphasis on rural and other underserved populations, through
education, research, service, outreach and creative partnerships. The
School is part of The Texas A&M University System Health Science
Center. Texas A&M is the only land-grant institution in the state of
Texas.
The
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's
largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It
concentrates its grantmaking in four goal areas: to assure that all
Americans have access to quality health care at reasonable cost; to
improve the quality of care and support for people with chronic health
conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce
the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse –
tobacco, alcohol and illicit drugs.