For many of us, it brings to mind pictures of declines in health, fitness, activity, wellness and increasing disabilities.
Many people also assume that getting fatter, weaker and stiffer are inevitable with age.
Is this inevitable. A growing body of research suggests that much of the decline attributed to aging actually comes from being sedentary, and that regular exercise can help people remain healthy and independent as they get older. One of the most intriguing studies documenting the 'anti-aging' effect of physical activity comes from the Adult Exercise Research Program at University of Nevada at Las Vegas, where exercise physiologist Lawrence Golding has collected data on nearly 1,000 adults who have taken the exercise class he's taught there since 1976. Many of the participants have been attending for years, typically exercising about three days per week. In body composition tests, for example, the 20-year exercisers had an average body fat of about 20 percent, compared with the nonexercising population norm of 26 percent.