Exercise Medicine | 1 INTRODUCTION A physically active lifestyle is understood nowadays as an important factor for the maintenance of health throughout life. In addition to the cardiovascular benefts [1,2], there are also psychological [3], cognitive [4], and musculoskeletal benefts [2,5,6], which is especially relevant for the older adult population. Conceptually, someone can be classifed as physically ac- tive based on their living habits if they spend at least 150 minutes per week, or at least 30 minutes a day, with mod- erate to vigorous intensity activities [7]. Notwithstanding, someone with this profle can simultaneously be classifed as having sedentary behavior [8,9], since the remaining time of the day can be dedicated to activities of low energy expend- iture ( ≤ 1.5 metabolic equivalent (MET)), such as sitting for reading, watching TV, talking, staying in a lying posi- tion, using a computer [10], which justifes the use of "sitting time" as a surrogate term to "sedentary behavior" [11,12]. Research Article Exercise Medicine Open Access eISSN: 2508-9056 Exercise Medicine 2021; 5:4 | https://doi.org/10.26644/em.2021.004 © The Author(s). 2021 Open Access; licensee Sapientia Publishing Group. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Infuence of Physically Active or Sedentary Lifestyle on Postural Control of Community-dwelling Old Adults Uanderson Silva Pirôpo 1,2 , Silvania Moraes Costa 1,2 , Ícaro JS Ribeiro 1,2 , Ivna Vidal Freire 1,2 , Ludmila Schettino 1,2 , Rafael da Silva Passos 1,2 , Marco Machado 3,4* , Cezar Augusto Casotti 2 , Rafael Pereira 1,2 1 Integrative Physiology Research Center, Biological Sciences Department, Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia (UESB), Jequié 45210-506, Bahia, Brazil. 2 Postgraduate Program in Nursing & Health, Universidade Estadual do Sudoeste da Bahia (UESB), Jequié 45210-506, Bahia, Brazil. 3 Universidade Iguaçu, Laboratory of Physiology and Biokinetics, Itaperuna 28300-000, RJ, Brazil 4 FUNITA, Laboratory of Human Movement Studies, Itaperuna 28300-000, RJ, Brazil. Article Information ABSTRACT History: Objectives: The maintenance of the postural balance is fundamental for the daily living activities, as well as for the practice of physical exercise. However, the aging process and sedentary behavior (i.e., large sitting time) lead to changes biological systems, impairing postural balance with consequent in- creased falls risk. On the other hand, physical activity practice is a protective factor against these trends. The aim of this study is to investigate the infuence of physical activity profle and sedentary behavior on postural control in community-dwelling old adults. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study including 208 community-dwelling old adults, which were stratifed as sufciently or insufciently physically active and with or without sedentary behavior. Then, they were grouped as follow: G1 (sufficiently physically active and without sedentary behavior), G2 (insufciently physically active, but without sedentary behavior), G3 (sufciently physically active, but with sedentary behavior), and G4 (insufciently physically active and with sedentary behavior). Results: Stabilometric parameters (sway area, total length of center of pressure [CoP] trajectory, and the mean velocity of CP displacement) were obtained to evaluate the postural control. There was signif- cant diference between G1 and G4 on mean velocity of CoP displacement (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The coexistence of sedentary behavior and insufcient physically active profle seem to impact negatively on postural control. Received: November 11, 2021 Accepted: December 29, 2021 Published: December 30, 2021 Keywords: ageing postural control sedentary behavior stabilometry *Correspondence: Marco Machado, Laboratory of Human Movement Studies Universitary Foundation of Itaperuna (FUNITA), R Luis Carlos Ferreira Tirado, 148, Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro, CEP 28.300-000, Brazil. Tel: +55-22-3824-4040 E-mail address: marcomachado1@gmail.com iD