Body Composition, Physical Fitness and Exercise Activities of Elderly

IntroductionThe definition of "elderly" is not yet a global term. Clinical and medical context often uses elderly with people over 65 years (Teymoortash et al., 2014), but all reports, documents, books and international meetings of The World Health Organization (WHO) employs elderly when the person in question is over the age of 60. Nonetheless, people over the age of 60-65 are a great achievement for humanity (WHO, 2002) because not long ago, most people did not live into old age. Moreover, the ageing is a natural and inevitable process (Amarya, Singh, & Sabharwal) related to lack of adjustment in the immune system, "immunosenescence" (CastilloGarzon, Ruiz, Ortega, & Gutierrez, 2006), affecting to living organisms and representing continuous degenerative changes in most physical and physiological functions (Trifunovic & Ventura, 2014). Fat mass (FM) increases and fat free mass (FFM) decreases during the period of 20-70 years of age (Colado, Garcia-Masso, Rogers, Tella, Benavent, & Dantas, 2012). Maximum levels FM are found between 6070 years of age (Gallagher et al., 1997). However, maximum levels of FFM is at 20 years of age and up to 40% decrease until 70 years of age, primarily skeletal muscle (Baumgartner, Stauber, McHugh, Koehler, & Garry, 1995). Ageing is associated with the redistribution of FM and FFM in the body (Amarya et al., 2014) and may be an important risk factor for metabolic disease (Aleman, Esparza, & Valencia, 1999). When there is an increase in FM, there is a reduction in SMM and physical capacity, along with a loss of FFM (Katula, Sipe, Rejeski, & Focht, 2006). An elderly, with more sedentary lifestyles, lose FFM faster than an elderly who is active. Consequently, there is prevention of weight loss and in maintaining functional capacity in people over the age of 70 (Woo, Yu, & Yau, 2013). The level of FM increases and FFM decreases among the elderly due to changes in body composition. This is the major drawback of body mass index (BMI) (Amarya et al., 2014). However, BMI is a suitable method when it is necessary to classify medical risk by weight status (Kumanyika, Brownson, & Satcher, 2007), such as obesity (Dudeja, Misra, Pandey, Devina, Kumar, & Vikram, 2001). Obesity is an excess of body fat that increases considerably the risk of mortal illness (Kumanyika et al., 2007). It is also considered a widespread health problem in developing countries, where it is accompanied by chronic morbidities, functional impairment and premature mortality (Donini, Chumlea, Vellas, del Balzo, & Cannella, 2006). Obesity is classified into three categories (principal cut-off points): type I (30.00-34.99), type II (35.00-39.99) and type III (> 40.00) (WHO, 2000). Excess of FM and a BMI of >30 in elderly people is associated with worse physical fitness, possible future disability (Davison, Ford, Cogswell, & Dietz, 2002) and excess body weight, (Chen et al., 2004) while obesity (Daviglus et al., 2004) is associated with the major prevalence of diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular risk, etc. Similarly, excess weight and obesity is strongly associated with metabolic syndrome (Yu et al., 2009) as was described in a Malaysian study on elderly women (Johari & Shahar, 2014). It is, therefore, necessary to establish containment plans concerning potential risks of obesity and excess weight in elderly people with the main aim being to effectively tackle morbidity (Gu et al., 2003). A method of prevention could be a reduction in weight when people reach middleage (Chuang, Chang, Lee, Chen, & Pan, 2014). However, weight loss in elderly people would be associated with risk of mortality if we compared this to elderly people maintaining a stable weight (Newman, Yanez, Harris, Duxbury, Enright, & Fried, 2001). Body composition, FM and skeletal muscle mass (SMM) are related to physical capacities (Colado et al, 2012) when the obesity is observable with an increase of FM and sarcopenia with a loss of SMM (Katula et al. …