Walkable surroundings encourage older adults to exercise

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Environment has a big effect on exercise level among older adults.
The benefits of exercise are well known. But same neighborhoods offer more facility to exercise than others. Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School report a study they carried out with town planners to see how people are affected by the 'walkability' of their surroundings.

They measured walkability according to 200 factors, including mix of residences and businesses, slope of the land, and proximity of facilities like grocery stores. The aim was to see how easy it was to walk to places where people would go anyway, like the shops. Then they carried out a survey of nearly 1,000 people aged from 65 to 97. Men in the group were six times more likely to walk for exercise if they lived in a walkable neighborhood and women 75 per cent more likely. Simple changes, like creating paths to make dead ends possible to walk through, can improve the walkability of an environment. And some local authorities are beginning to do these things - a move which could improve the fitness and health of their citizens.

Source
American Journal of Public Health March 2007

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