Sedentary behavior and physical activity are independently related to functional fitness in older adults Diana A. Santos a , Analiza M. Silva a , Fátima Baptista a , Rute Santos b, c , Susana Vale b , Jorge Mota b , Luís B. Sardinha a, ⁎ a Exercise and Health Laboratory, Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon, 1499‐002, Cruz-Quebrada, Portugal b Research Centre in Physical Activity, Health and Leisure, Faculty of Sport, University of Porto, 4200‐450, Porto, Portugal c Maia Institute of Higher Education, 4475‐690 Maia, Portugal abstract article info Article history: Received 29 May 2012 Received in revised form 5 July 2012 Accepted 25 July 2012 Available online xxxx Section Editor: Christiaan Leeuwenburgh Keywords: Aging Physical function Functional fitness Sedentary behavior Physical activity The last decades of life have been traditionally viewed as a time of inevitable disease and frailty. Sedentary living and physical activity may influence capacity to perform activities that are needed to maintain physical independence in daily living. A total of 117 males and 195 females, aged 65–103 years, were assessed for physical activity and sedentary time with accelerometers and for functional fitness with the Senior Fitness Test battery. Based on the individual scores for each fitness item, a Z-score was created. Associations between functional fitness with sedentary time and moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) were analyzed. A negative association was found between the composite Z-score for functional fitness and the sedentary time, even adjusting for MVPA and other confounders. On the other hand, MVPA was positively associated with the composite Z-score for functional fitness, independently of the sedentary time. In conclusion elderly who spend more time in physical activity or less time in sedentary behaviors exhibit improved functional fitness and other confounders. The results reinforce the importance of promoting both the reduction of sedentary behaviors and the increase of MVPA in this age group, as it may interfere at older ages in order to preserve functional fitness and performance of daily functioning tasks. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The older adult population has increased substantially in Portugal over the past 30 years. In 1981 only 11.4% of the population was aged 65 or older and by 2011 the number had increased to 19.1% (Instituto Nacional de Estatística, 2011). Old age has been traditionally viewed as a time of inevitable disease and frailty. The public health benefits would be enormous if the onset of disease and functional limitations could be postponed or eliminated since this segment of the popula- tion is more likely to be institutionalized or hospitalized, to have dis- abilities, and to consume a large portion of health care resources (DiPietro, 2007; Field and Jette, 2007). Functional fitness has been defined as having the physiological ca- pacity to perform normal everyday activities, safely and independently, without undue fatigue (Rikli and Jones, 1999). Its periodic assessment is of vital concern and has substantial implications for health care costs (Spirduso et al., 2005). Rikli & Jones (Rikli and Jones, 1999) validated a functional fitness test battery for community-dwelling older adults. This battery consists of six items designed to assess physical parameters associated with independent functioning. Aspects of physical fitness, such as, strength, walking speed, and agility are important to health and functional status of older persons, and useful in predicting disability, dependence, hospitalization, institutionalization, morbidity, and mortal- ity in older adults (Guralnik et al., 1995). Physical activity has been defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that results in energy expenditure (Caspersen et al., 1985). Habitual physical activity has been associated not only with a re- duction of the incidence of cardiovascular diseases, obesity, osteoporo- sis, or diabetes (Hamer et al., 2012; Kelley, 1998; Paganini-Hill, 2011; Santos et al., 2012) but also with improvements in physical fitness resulting in enhanced functioning of older adults (Lobo et al., 2011; Matsuda et al., 2010; McAuley et al., 2007; Paterson and Warburton, 2010). However, there is emerging evidence that, in addition to physical activity, sedentary behaviors, define as those activities that do not in- crease energy expenditure substantially above the resting level, such as sitting, lying down, or viewing TV (Pate et al., 2008), are also associat- ed with the risk for numerous chronic diseases (Bankoski et al., 2011; Inoue et al., 2012; Stamatakis et al., 2012; Swartz et al., 2011), with health-related quality of life in older adults (Balboa-Castillo et al., 2011), and with increased all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortali- ty (Grontved and Hu, 2011; van der Ploeg et al., 2012). Moreover, recent evidence also suggests that the relation between sedentary behavior Experimental Gerontology xxx (2012) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author at: Exercise and Health Laboratory, Faculty of Human Kinetics, Technical University of Lisbon, Estrada da Costa, 1499‐002 Cruz-Quebrada, Portugal. Tel.: +351 21 414 91 60; fax: +351 21 414 91 93. E-mail address: lsardinha@fmh.utl.pt (L.B. Sardinha). EXG-09068; No of Pages 5 0531-5565/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2012.07.011 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Experimental Gerontology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/expgero Please cite this article as: Santos, D.A., et al., Sedentary behavior and physical activity are independently related to functional fitness in older adults, Exp. Gerontol. (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exger.2012.07.011