The Older They Get, the More Comfortable the Couch

A lot of our lifestyle choices and habits are set when we are in our 20s: career paths, marriage and family, diet, exercise. It is common for physically active teenagers to become sedentary adults by age 30. Health professionals are constantly urging adults to get off the couch and get moving. If they knew when and why young adults stop exercising, health professionals could better target a solution.

Researchers in Australia looked at surveys of the physical activity of more than 7000 young adults. The subjects were divided into three age groups: 18 and 19, 20 to 24, and 25 to 29. The groups were rated according to vigorous exercise, moderate exercise, sufficient exercise for health benefits, and how much they walked.

The older the group, the less often they took part in all four categories of exercise. The results showed up to a 21% decrease in exercise from age 18 to age 21. Researchers also looked at the difference between exercise styles in men and women. For all age groups, men had higher rates of vigorous and moderate activity. However, the results suggest that men get more sedentary than women as they age. Women had much higher rates of walking than men--and the rates of walking dropped off less in the older groups of women.

A study done in the United States might show different results. Still, this type of knowledge is useful to doctors and other health professionals who want to help their younger patients find ways to keep exercising as they start their careers and families. Based on this evidence, doctors should encourage many young women to add some moderate-intensity workouts to the walking they already do. And men should be encouraged to find more moderate types of activities, such as walking and biking, as they move away from the high-intensity activities of their youth. The authors suggest that helping people develop healthy exercise habits in their youth might be more successful than trying to get middle-aged and older adults off the couch.