There was no evidence for a relationship between intervention effectiveness and mode of delivery or number of intervention contacts ; however , interventions which involved individually tailoring with personalized activity goals or provision of information about local opportunities in the environment may be more effective .
Conclusions Interventions in adults aged 55 to 70 years led to long term improvements in physical activity at 12 months ; however , maintenance beyond this is unclear .
Identified physical activity improvements are likely to have substantial health benefits in reducing the risk of age-related illnesses .
Background Retirement represents a major transitional life stage in middle to older age .
Changes in physical activity typically accompany this transition , which has significant consequences for health and well-being .
The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the evidence for the effect of interventions to promote physical activity in adults aged 55 to 70 years , focusing on studies that reported long-term effectiveness .
The inverse relationship between number of steps per day and obesity in a population-based sample – the AusDiab study
Background : Physical activity ( PA ) is inversely associated with obesity but the effect has been difficult to quantify using question naires . In particular , the shape of the association has not yet been well described . Pedometers provide an opportunity to better characterize the association . Methods : Residents of households over the age of 25 years in r and omly selected census districts in Tasmania were eligible to participate in the AusDiab cross-sectional survey conducted in 1999–2000 . 1848 completed the AusDiab survey and 1126 of these ( 609 women and 517 men ) wore a pedometer for 2-weekdays . Question naire data on  recent PA , TV time  and other factors were obtained . The outcomes were waist circumference ( in cm ) and body mass index ( BMI ) ( kg/m2 ) . Results : Increasing daily steps were associated with a decline in the obesity measures . The logarithmic nature of the associations was indicated by a sharper decline for those with lower daily steps . For example , an additional 2000 steps for those taking only 2000 steps per day was associated with a reduction of 2.8 ( 95 % confidence interval ( CI ) : 2.1,4.4 ) cm in waist circumference among men ( for women ; 2.2 ( 95 % CI : 0.6 , 3.9 cm ) ) with a baseline of only 2000 , steps compared to a 0.7 ( 95 % CI 0.3 , 1.1 ) cm reduction ( for women ; 0.6 ( 95 % CI : 0.2 , 1.0 ) ) for those already walking 10 000 steps daily . In the multivariable analysis , clearer associations were detected for  PA and these obesity measures using daily step number rather than PA time by question naire . Interpretation : Pedometer measures of activity indicate that the inverse association between recent  PA  and obesity is logarithmic in form with the greatest impact for a given arithmetic step number increase seen at lower levels of baseline activity . The findings from this study need to be examined in prospect i ve setting
There was no evidence for a relationship between intervention effectiveness and mode of delivery or number of intervention contacts ; however , interventions which involved individually tailoring with personalized activity goals or provision of information about local opportunities in the environment may be more effective .
Conclusions Interventions in adults aged 55 to 70 years led to long term improvements in physical activity at 12 months ; however , maintenance beyond this is unclear .
Identified physical activity improvements are likely to have substantial health benefits in reducing the risk of age-related illnesses .
Background Retirement represents a major transitional life stage in middle to older age .
Changes in physical activity typically accompany this transition , which has significant consequences for health and well-being .
The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the evidence for the effect of interventions to promote physical activity in adults aged 55 to 70 years , focusing on studies that reported long-term effectiveness .