The good news is that exercise does wonders for your body image. The less good news is that it may also do wonders for your body. Or not. University of Florida researchers recently analyzed 57 studies on the effects of exercise on body image, and found that people who don’t achieve workout milestones such as losing fat, gaining
strength or boosting cardiovascular fitness feel just as good about
their bodies as their more athletic counterparts. Wait, there’s more. A University of Florida press release reports that the study showed slightly larger benefits from exercise in terms of improving body image for women than men, and the results indicated that older people are most likely to report enhanced body images from exercise.
Read the University of Florida press release here.
Read an abstract from the study in the Journal of Health Psychology.
I’m 66 years old and have exercised practically my entire life. Occasionally I would go on a regular, heavy workout regimen. I slacked off the last few years but now retired, I have tried to exercise heavily again. Am now back to regular runs and heavy exercises, but cannot do it more than twice a week.
However, I feel great and I think my body looks better than it has the last 4-5 years.
Moral of the story – don’t ever quit exercising.
Exercising. We always hear about exercising more. But yes, exercising greatly improves your ability to perform higher mental functions and not be scatterbrained. Getting your breathing rate up by doing aerobic exercises is important. I put this first on the list because it is often difficult and uncommon for older folks to do vigorous exercise.