NO TIME ... NO PROBLEM
Study suggests women should match routines to best fit current lifestyles
Rarely does a study focus solely on the exercise habits of females.
In an effort to find out more about the women who meet the Australian guidelines for physical activity (150 to 300 minutes of exercise a week), as well as those who don’t, a group of Brisbane-based researchers scoured 12 years of records of more than 15,000 women.
The subjects were part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health, which collected data through surveys completed every three years from 2000 to 2013. They were grouped according to their age, and the Brisbane researchers were particularly interested in the exercise habits of women in their 20s and 50s.
The Brisbane researchers reviewed the self-reported data on exercise, including the number of minutes per week spent working out at various intensities as well as several lifestyle, health and demographic factors like age, education and marital status.
Work and home life were studied, including occupational status, hours worked per week and care responsibilities, whether it be for children, grandchildren or aging parents. BMI (body mass index), smoking and drinking habits, chronic health conditions, number of hours spent sitting in a chair per day and the level of stress associated with their lifestyle were also considered.
The results pointed to some interesting trends — some expected and some unexpected.
Not surprisingly, the most active young women (those who exercised for 300-plus minutes per week) were single, had a university degree, worked long hours and sat less than eight hours a day. As for their exercise of choice, they performed highintensity physical activity but were also dedicated walkers. Yet as these women moved into their 30s, the number who performed the highest amount of activity dropped by nine percentage points (to 31 from 40 per cent). And the number who didn’t exercise at all nearly doubled (eight to 15 per cent).
What changed in the lives of these women over this 12-year period? More than half graduated from university, 80 per cent got married or were living with a partner, and more than threequarters had at least one child. As for their health, the number who were overweight or obese increased, as did the number with chronic diseases.
In sharp contrast to these stats is the experience of the women in their 50s. Over the same 12-year period, there was a 12 per cent increase in those who met the recommended number of weekly exercise minutes.
What kind of exercise did the older women prefer? Walking was their workout of choice, with fewer minutes spent performing moderate and vigorous exercise compared to their younger counterparts. As for their health, the older women weren’t immune to a rise in their BMI, but it increased to a lesser extent than it did for the younger women. On the other hand, the number of women with chronic health conditions almost doubled.
“Less is known about activity habits of mid-age women, but it appears that life events such as retirement may free up time for
activity at this life stage,” the researchers said.
What does all this tell us? The key to maintaining an exercise habit is matching your workout to your lifestyle, not the other way around. The older women did this well by taking long walks at a period in their life when they had the time. Younger women with less free time should adopt high-intensity interval training, in which workouts as short as 10 minutes can provide almost all the benefits associated with more time spent in the gym.