NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many older adults do not increase their leisure and sport-related activities to replace the loss of work-related physical activity once they stop working, so their overall level of physical activity declines, according to the findings of a Dutch study.
"Retirement introduces a net loss in physical activity at an age when physical activity is most needed," study co-author Dr. Annabelle S. Slingerland of Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, UK, told Reuters Health.
By 2025, an estimated 1.2 billion individuals will be 60 years of age or older, up from the current 600 million, according to the World Health Organization. The prevalence of various chronic diseases, such as diabetes, is known to increase with age.
Programs designed to increase physical activity and improve eating habits have been shown to lower the incidence of diabetes by up to 58 percent, however. Research also indicates that regular exercise can help people maintain good physical and psychological functioning.
For many adults in the Netherlands, where people work an average 18.2 kilometers (11.3 miles) away from their homes, physical activity is largely work-related -- 28 percent of workers cycle or walk to get to work and some engage in manual labor at the job site.
Many individuals also say their work prevents them from participating in more leisure-time physical activities, which suggests that retirement may afford these individuals the extra time necessary to stay active.
To investigate what seniors are actually doing, Slingerland and her team followed 971 working adults, between 40 and 65 years old, for 13 years. At the end of the study period, 684 of these individuals had retired.
Retirees were three times more likely than working adults to report a decline in work-related physical activity, Slingerland's group reports in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Yet, retirees did not compensate for this reduction in physical activity by increasing their participation in sports or other forms of physical exercise, the report indicates.
"We were surprised" by the lack of increase in leisure time physical activities and sports participation, because the participants had reported work-related time pressures and constraints as the major barriers to leisure-time activity, Slingerland told Reuters Health.
Therefore, work-related barriers may be "perceived rather than real" or retirement may introduce new barriers. The integration of new habits may also be difficult and may take more of an effort than the subjects are willing to give, the researcher speculated.
Slingerland encourages retirees to carefully plan their retirement and incorporate regular physical activity into their daily routines.
"Retirement is a privilege, grab the opportunity to make the most of it for yourself," she urges.
SOURCE: American Journal of Epidemiology, June 15, 2007.
