Abstract
Advanced age is associated with degenerative changes in body composition. There is evidence suggesting that changes may vary upon differences in lifestyle, environment, or gender. Physical activity engagement is considered an important component of lifestyle definition. There are suggestions that engaging in physical activity might alleviate degenerative body compositional changes. The objective is to assess the relationship between adherence to recommended guidelines of physical activity and anthropometric parameters in Israeli older adults. Anthropometric measures, including height, weight, and waist circumference, were taken, and BMI was calculated, from a random sample of 1,663 elderly adults (799 men and 864 women), aged 74.31 (±6.05) years old. Participants reported their physical activity habits and, based on official guidelines recommendations, they were divided into sufficiently active, insufficiently active, and inactive groups. One-way ANOVA (level of physical activity) for both genders was conducted for each anthropometric variable. In both genders, an association between level of physical activity and weight, waist circumference, and BMI was found, with lower values among the sufficiently active. In addition, a relationship between level of physical activity and height was indicated among women, implying that the more active women were taller than the less active. In addition to the already known health benefits of physical activity in old age, it is possible that adherence to recommended guidelines of physical activity is associated with favorable anthropometric characteristics.
Highlights
Anthropometric parameters reflect body size and composition
Adults not living in their own homes in the community for the following reasons: being out of the country for 6 months or more, hospitalization for more than 6 months, hospitalization in a psychiatric institution, hospitalization in a long-term care institution or an institution for the mentally fragile or older adults with significant cognitive reduction according to the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) score adjusted for age and education, and immigrants who arrived in Israel after December 31, 2003
Descriptive statistics of demographic and health variables for the three levels of physical activity are presented in Table 1 and Table 2
Summary
Anthropometric parameters reflect body size and composition. Anthropometric parameters are exposed to degenerative processes, leading to body composition changes. Eur Rev Aging Phys Act (2014) 11:149–157 consequence, body mass index (BMI), calculated based on weight and height, tends to increase in middle age and stabilizes between 50 and 70 years old [8, 23]. Both genders show a decrease in average BMI after the age of 75 [23]
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