Being active for Iater Ufe: What determines physical activity and exercise participation among retired female government servants in Sri-Lanka?

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.