The lack of exercise among senior citizen

Xi Zhao
The lack of exercise among senior citizens has been reported increasingly over the past decades. In the United States,
Why we should care:
“The global population age 65 or older was estimated at 461 million in 2004, an increase of 10.3 million just since 2003. Projections suggest that the annual net gain will continue to exceed 10 million over the next decade. Individuals 65 years of age are expected to raise to 20% by the year 2040, and health care programs are projected to represent 32 percent of all domestic spending by 2022.
Global aging the challenge of success
1. The Aging Population
2. Prescription drugs. A major contribution to the burden of the government budget
Traditional thinking:
About 12% of 65 to 74 have been reported experiencing difficulty with basic activities, such as eating and walking (Harada et al., pg.54, 1995). Mobility impairment contributes to the dramatic decline in engaging exercises. Thus, senior citizens have a higher chance of getting illness such as obesity, overweight, and high blood pressure due to the effect of the lack of exercise.
Argument
The main causes of the problem are the stereotypical views and images on senior citizens associated with aging, of which they are not competent individuals engaging in descent amount of exercise regularly instead of their physical limit.
The Stereotype Theory
The type of knowledge that all humans carry unconsciously and genetically. Several possible motivations have been suggested for the formation of stereotyping.
Why?
1. People stereotype other group of people for the purpose of cognitive efficiency. It is a lot easier to extract information from a general sense than differentiating the minor differences among individuals. Categorization saves so much processing time in our brains and humans are also known as cognitive misers.
2. People no longer need to understand and predict the social world once we stereotype the other groups of people.
3. Human has the tendency to feel better about themselves over the others. This phenomenon is called the in-group favorability bias (Stereotypes as explanations the formation of meaningful beliefs about social groups)
In “This Old Stereotype: The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Elderly Stereotype”, the authors introduced the stereotype content model (SCM), which served as a tool to evaluate the likelihood of a group of being stereotyped. The evaluation only based on two primary dimensions of stereotypes: warmth(high) and competence(low).
Pity
Older people may internalize the pity conveyed through messages from other group of people, and thus become less independence than they need to. Indeed, Langer and Benevento (1978) found that the assignment of labels that convey inferiority (e.g., pitiful) actually renders people helpless and creates self-induced dependence.

Once being stereotyped, people fit themselves into their “role”: As individuals seek to maintain a belief that the social structures to which they belong are just and fair, members of groups that confirm worldviews may be particularly welcome, and thus particularly liked. In part, too, people have a general need to feel that the world is an orderly, predictable place Events that confirm our expectations serve this purpose. Indeed, the fact that we shape events to confirm our expectations reflects the robustness of this need

The stereotypical views and images on senior citizens associated with ageing have been challenged more and more often
A research study based on the open-ended in-depth interview with eight women and seven men over 70 years shows that, senior citizens are not only capable, but also can enjoy themselves in the sport that are considered “acute” for their bodies. The people in the group have various backgrounds in education socio-economic status and sporting experience. The only thing in common is the fact that they have developed the habit of playing sports regularly. The types of sports include tennis, swimming, bowls, cycling, golf, running, and etc. One of the participants recalled the time when she picked up badminton at some point of her life

“Most experienced some degree of embarrassment particularly during their initial experiences of reuniting with and playing sport. It was like ‘being the odd one out as there are only a few of my age group involved in cycling and swimming.’”

Bandura, A. (2001). SCT: An Agentic Perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52(1), 1-26. Bevan C. Grant (2001). ‘You're never too old’: beliefs about physical activity and playing sportin later life. Ageing and Society, 21, pp. 777-798.
Boehm, J., Franklin, R. C., Newitt, R., Mcfarlane, K., Grant, T., & Kurkowski, B. (2013). Barriers and motivators to exercise for older adults: A focus on those living in rural and remote areas of Australia. Australian Journal of Rural Health, 21(3), 141-149.

Cuddy, A. J., Norton, M. I., & Fiske, S. T. (2005). This Old Stereotype: The Pervasiveness And Persistence Of The Elderly Stereotype. Journal of Social Issues

Kanavos, P., & Gemmill, M. (2004). Senior Citizens and the Burden of Prescription Drug Outlays. Applied Health Economics and Health Policy, 3(4), 217

McGarty, C. (2002). Stereotypes as explanations the formation of meaningful beliefs about social groups. London: Cambridge University Press.