title: The relationship between expectations for aging and physical activity among older adults.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  New strategies to increase physical activity among sedentary older adults are urgently needed.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine whether low expectations regarding aging (age-expectations) are associated with low physical activity levels among older adults.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cross-sectional survey.
  
  
  METHODS
  Six hundred and thirty-six English- and Spanish-speaking adults aged 65 years and above attending 14 community-based senior centers in the Los Angeles region. Over 44% were non-Latino whites, 15% were African American, and 36% were Latino. The mean age was 77 years (range 65 to 100).
  
  
  METHODS
  Self-administered written surveys including previously tested measures of age-expectations and physical activity level in the previous week.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Over 38% of participants reported <30 minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity in the previous week. Older adults with lower age-expectations were more likely to report this very low level of physical activity than those with high age-expectations, even after controlling for the independent effect of age, sex, ethnicity, level of education, physical and mental health-related quality of life, comorbidity, activities of daily living impairment, depressive symptoms, self-efficacy, survey language, and clustering at the senior center. Compared with the quintile of participants having the highest age-expectations, participants with the lowest quintile of age-expectations had an adjusted odds ratio of 2.6 (95% confidence intervals: 1.5, 4.5) of reporting <30 minutes of moderate-vigorous physical activity in the previous week.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In this diverse sample of older adults recruited from senior centers, low age-expectations are independently associated with very low levels of physical activity. Harboring low age-expectations may act as a barrier to physical activity among sedentary older adults.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of Geriatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, Calif 90095-1687, USA. csarkisian@mednet.ucla.edu
authors.forename: Catherine A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Sarkisian
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Prohaska
authors.forename: Mitchell D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Hirsch
authors.forename: Carol M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Mangione
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006707:Homes for the Aged; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008603:Mental Health; D009043:Motor Activity; D011788:Quality of Life