Why older people engage in physical activity: an exploratory study of participants in a community-based walking program Darren J. Capalb A , Paul O’Halloran A,B and Pranee Liamputtong A A School of Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Vic. 3086, Australia. B Corresponding author. Email: P.O’halloran@latrobe.edu.au Abstract. While older people experience substantial physical and mental health benefits from regular physical activity, participation rates among older people are low. There is a need to gather more information about why older people do and do not engage in physical activity. This paper aims to examine the reasons why older men and women chose to engage in a community-based physical activity program. Specific issues that were examined included reasons why older people who had been involved in a community-based program on a regular basis: commenced the program; continued with the program; and recommenced the program after they had dropped out. Ten participants (eight females and two males) aged between 62 and 75 years, who had been participating in a community-based physical activity program for a minimum of 6 months, were individually interviewed. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Three major themes emerged, including ‘time to bond: social interaction’ with sub-themes ‘bona fide friendships’ and ‘freedom from being isolated’; ‘I want to be healthy: chronic disease management’; and ‘new lease on life’. Two of the primary reasons why older people both commenced and recommenced the program were the promise of social interaction and to be able to better manage their chronic conditions. Received 13 July 2012, accepted 14 November 2012, published online 17 December 2012 Introduction It is well documented that regular physical activity (PA) has a substantial impact on health and wellbeing in older adults. Further, the World Health Organization (2009) has indentified that physical inactivity is now a leading risk factor for global mortality and is responsible for more deaths per year (6%) than overweight and obesity (5%). Despite the impact of PA on health and wellbeing, older people are not sufficiently active (ABS 2009). Thus, it is important to develop an understanding of PA in older adults. While there is a large literature base concerning barriers to PA in older adults, such as general health problems and musculoskeletal injuries (Lim and Taylor 2005; Allender et al. 2006) we know much less about why people initiate PA, particularly in community settings. Additionally, little is known about the processes involving the resumption of activity after a break, the ‘relapse’ or ‘stopstart’ syndrome (Biddle and Mutrie 2008). Buman et al.(2010) indicated that despite all that is known about barriers and motivators of PA, it is still difficult to adapt this knowledge into useful recommendations for PA interventions for older people. According to Buman and colleagues this is partly due to the complex interaction between PA interventions, PA behaviour, and the ageing process. They argue it is imperative that researchers seek to understand the whole individual, including the source and manifestation of unique beliefs and attitudes, the cultural influences that affect behaviour, and the meanings that they form about their behaviour. A qualitative research framework is ideally suited to developing our understanding of PA in older people as it provides a clear understanding of the intricacy of PA behaviour through listening to the stories and lived experiences of older people (Carless and Sparkes 2008). Relatively few studies have utilised qualitative methods to examine the reasons why older adults participate in PA. Indeed, it is only just in the past 2 years that two qualitative studies on this topic have been published (de Souza and Vendruscolo 2010; Stathi et al. 2010). Stathi et al.(2010), who interviewed 21 older adults (mean age = 75.8 years) from the UK about the reasons why they commenced a PA program, reported that it was only when these older people realised their own health was declining and their reduced physical capacity was beginning to affect their daily lives that they were motivated to respond appropriately to improve their health status. This was consistent with the findings of de Souza and Vendruscolo (2010) who interviewed 10 older adults in Brazil (mean age = 65 years). Given that the studies by de Souza and Vendruscolo (2010) and Stathi et al.(2010) were conducted with older women in the UK and Brazil it is not clear if their findings would be applicable to older men and women in an Australian context. Furthermore, these qualitative studies did not examine the important issue of why older adults recommence PA once they have dropped out (Biddle and Mutrie 2008). Given that a large proportion of people intermittently drop out of exercise programs or leisure activities (Biddle and Mutrie 2008) it would be particularly useful to develop our understanding of why people Journal compilation Ó La Trobe University 2012 www.publish.csiro.au/journals/py CSIRO PUBLISHING Australian Journal of Primary Health Research http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/PY12090