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Older Population Benefits

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Out of all the members at my local gym, only 7% of them fit into older population category and I think this needs to increase dramatically. It is important to promote and support physical activity for the older population try and raise the amount of physically active older adults. Physical activity is defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that require energy expenditure. (World Health Organisation, 2015, para. 1). I believe it is important for the older population to be physically active because there are so many benefits which come from it. Some of the many benefits include reduced risk of getting diseases, better quality of life, prevention/cure of depression and reducing anxiety and stress. Supporting and encouraging …show more content…

There are endless benefits which come from being active. The main benefits include reducing your risk of getting certain diseases, prevention of weight gain, improving your mood, reducing stress/anxiety and improving your overall life quality.
Engaging in physical activity can reduce your chances of getting diseases including certain cancers, heart disease and stroke. This is because during physical exercise your heart becomes stronger and therefore isn’t so prone to developing these diseases, especially heart disease and strokes. Coronary heart disease and stroke share many of the same risk factors such as high LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels, low HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, smoking, diabetes, physical inactivity, and being overweight or obese. (American Stroke Association, 2015, p. 1). Being physically active reduces the chance of you becoming overweight, and overweight individuals again are more likely to experience these diseases. Being physically active can improve your hearts ability to work by lowering your blood pressure and increasing your ability to have blood flow around the body. Strokes are mostly caused when an artery that takes blood to the heart gets blocked. This results in the blood not being able to get to where it needs to go. Being a healthy …show more content…

This makes sense because I believe that there is nothing more satisfying than going for a walk around the lake or being able to do something physical that you never were able to do before. You become a lot more satisfied by going out and achieving things in life rather than sitting back and doing nothing for yourself and achieving nothing. Although mood is a relatively unstable experience, physical activity is anticipated to increase positive mood and decrease negative mood in older adults. (American College of Sports Medicine, 2014, p. 24). I think that educating the older population on the benefits that exercise can have on your mood is vital, especially since it is common for older adults to feel down and have poor mood swings. Their poor mood swings could be caused by anything, such as frustration, boredom or feeling alone. It is also thought that being physically active can help to cure depression or prevent you from getting it. Aerobic physical activity is evidently proven that it influences depressive thoughts, stress levels and boosts the immune system. (Nagel, 2008, p. 54). This ties in with having an improved mood from being physically active. Mild depression is known to be able to be caused by being physically active. I believe this is because you become more satisfied in life by achieving things which will mean you have an increased mood and

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