Abstract:
Gentle exercise can help reduce many of the health risks of old age, and enable
senior citizens to stay mobile. Unfortunately, it can be seen that Sri Lankan older
women are generally not heeding the message. The purpose of this paper is to
examine what specific social practices accomplish the physical and ideological
exclusion of elderly Sri Lankan women from participation in physical activity and
exercises. Randomly selected retired female Sri Lankan government servants (N =
300) have been taken as the research sample. The empirical component of this
paper uses a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews to investigate the research
proposition. The main questions related to this research address the issue in two
ways. First, it emphasises the main reasons why female retired government servants
do or do not participate in exercise and physical activity. Second, it identifies the
perceived obstacles they are facing in participating in physical activity and exercise.
The results revealed that retired female government servants feel they do enough
physical activity and exercise to benefit their health and they regard physical
activity.and exercise as important. Finally, specific attention has been paid to how
obstacles on physical activity and exercise participation by retired female
government servants can be overcome, and how those who are not interested in
physical activity and exercise can be encouraged to become involved.
