Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Aging Research Volume 2012, Article ID 890679, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2012/890679 Research Article Barriers Are Not the Limiting Factor to Participation in Physical Activity in Canadian Seniors Kristy L. Smith, Kelly Carr, Alexandra Wiseman, Kelly Calhoun, Nancy H. McNevin, and Patricia L. Weir Department of Kinesiology, University of Windsor, Windsor, ON, Canada N9B 3P4 Correspondence should be addressed to Patricia L. Weir, weir1@uwindsor.ca Received 16 March 2012; Revised 8 July 2012; Accepted 19 July 2012 Academic Editor: Lynn Rochester Copyright © 2012 Kristy L. Smith et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The identiﬁcation of barriers to physical activity and exercise has been used for many decades to explain exercise behavior in older adults. Typically health concerns are the number one barrier to participation. Data from CCHS-HA dataset (N = 20,875) were used to generate a sample of Canadians, 60+ years, who did not identify a health condition limitation, illness, or injury as a barrier to participation in physical activity (n = 4,900) making this dataset unique in terms of the study of barriers to participation. While the vast majority of older adults participated in physical activity, 9.4% did not. The relationships between nonparticipation, barriers, self-reported health status, and chronic health conditions were determined using binary logistic regression. The main ﬁndings suggest that traditional barriers and self-reported health status are not responsible for nonparticipation. Nonparticipation was best predicted by chronic health conditions suggesting a disconnect between self-reported health status and underlying health conditions. The data are clear in suggesting that barriers are not the limiting factor and physical activity programming must be focused on meeting the health needs of our aging population. 1. Introduction The world’s population is aging. In 2009, 14% of Canada’s 32 million people were aged 65 years or older. This proportion is expected to rise to between 23 and 25% by 2036; eﬀectively doubling the number of seniors observed in 2009 [1], placing increased demand on the health care system and the nation’s workforce. With this dramatic demographical change in the population, it has become increasingly important to ﬁnd eﬀective ways to improve health and prolong independence among older adults. Participation in regular physical activity can provide numerous physiological, cognitive, and psy- chological health beneﬁts in the aging population. While some level of decline, such as reduced muscle strength and slower responding, is a normal part of the aging process [2], there is evidence that habitual exercise can minimize the physiological eﬀects of an otherwise sedentary lifestyle and prolong active life expectancy [3]. However, despite this knowledge, many individuals do not engage in recom- mended levels of regular physical activity [4], and the Seniors in Canada report card [5] gave Canadian seniors a grade of C+ for participation in physical activity, with 62% of seniors being inactive. The sizeable proportion of inactive individuals forces a critical examination of the unique challenges faced by older adults, aimed at developing the most eﬀective health strate- gies to promote physical activity in this cohort [6]. Eﬀorts to optimize health in this manner have led to numerous studies focused on identifying barriers and motivators to exercise among the older adult population, and several determinants have been consistently identiﬁed in the research literature as signiﬁcant factors related to exercise behaviour among older individuals [7]. Considerations such as health concerns [6, 8, 9], lack of knowledge [6, 10], fear of falling or injury [6, 9, 11], time constraints [6, 8, 9], and lack of transportation [6] are generally reported as disincentives to participation by older adults. Typically, issues contributing to the lack of participation are elicited through the use of focus group discussions [6, 9], interviews [11], or questionnaires [12]. These studies can be complex, such that some issues such as health problems