Despite how the U.S. is aging, the pace at which Americans work and play is showing no sign of decelerating. Older Americans (i.e. Baby Boomers) are looking for ways to age well, and regular physical activity has an important role to play in this. As a result, health club programming for baby boomers—strength, balance and functional training—has ranked 2^nd on the list of IHRSA's Top Fitness Trends for 2012.

Regular exercise helps improve a whole lot more than the cosmetic consequences of aging, which are often times “fixed” by short-term solutions, such as risky procedures or pills and lotions that have unsubstantiated claims of the effects. Michael R. Mantell, PhD, Senior Fitness Consultant for Behavioral Sciences at American Council on Exercise, says it best in a guest blog post, Gray is the New Green, in which he discusses marketing programs catered to older adults. When blogging to health clubs, Mantell writes:

“You aren’t in the pseudo-anti-aging businesses of hormone replacement, cosmetic surgery, or skincare treatment. You’re in a business that has staggering amounts of proven, databased research behind it. We know full well that consistent, moderate-to-vigorous exercise will help prevent obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, high cholesterol, cognitive decline, muscle bone loss, impaired sexuality, and musculoskeletal injuries, among other age-related disabilities, diseases, and functional impairments.”

 And Mantell’s right. Research shows that:

•     Regular exercise decreases the likelihood of developing arthritis-related disabilities
•     Men and women aged 65 and older who exercise have a lower risk of losing mobility
•     The fitter you are, the lower your risk of brain function decline
•     Fit men have one-third the risk of death from heart disease as women
•     Unfit men have a 39 percent risk of death from cardiovascular disease and 44 percent risk of all-cause mortality.

In the years to come, the U.S. is likely to see a significant increase in physical activity programming that is designed especially for seniors and older adults, as well as trainers specially trained and certified to work with older populations. Successful programs, Mantell says, hinge on having a keen understanding of their values and behavior; trainers who can relate to this segment of the population; creating environments that help make older adults feel welcome; and tailoring workouts to strength training, posture, balance and mobility. 

“Exercise is one of the most effective forms of primary prevention we have,” says Helen Durkin, Executive Vice President of Global Public Policy at IHRSA, in an editorial in McClatchy News. “The practice of primary prevention — engaging in beneficial lifestyle behaviors, such as regular exercise, healthy eating, avoidance of tobacco and other controlled substances, stress management, and routine medical exams in order to deter the onset of disease — boosts our health and puts older Americans in a better position for fighting off the symptoms of aging,” Durkin writes.

You can’t live forever, but you can live well. With regular physical activity, older adults can reduce their arthritic pain, maintain their mobility, help prevent the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s, and minimize the limitations of aging far into their senior years. 

How are you creating physical activity programming for older adults?

Given today's societal awareness of obesity and, to lesser a degree, the related chronic diseases, my sense is that most fitness marketing focuses, implicitly or explicitly, on the physical health benefits of exercise. The work of behavior economists, however, suggests that humans are more attracted to short-term gains than long-term gains, which presents profound challenges for marketing the health benefits of exercise programs. As Cornell University Professor John Cawley recently noted at a Campaign to End Obesity event, it's hard to get a 35-year old man to take actions today that might extend the end of his life some 40 or 50 years down the road.

Marketing angles such as, "Extend Your Life Expectancy by 10 Years," are certainly compelling, and may impact a few New Year's resolutions, but probably would not get the majority of Americans out of bed at 6 am for an early morning workout.

We know that exercise is wonderful medicine. And if it were in a pill form, "it would be the most prescribed wonder drug in history." But, unfortunately, exercise is not only medicine, it's also considered work by most people - and humans prefer that work be rewarded sooner rather than later.

To further complicate marketing efforts, many of the health benefits of exercise are prevention-focused, which means that a person may need to feel susceptible to a disease before appreciating the preventive benefits of exercise.

Of course, the physical benefits of exercise are powerful and immediate, and should be trumpeted in marketing efforts to parents and children, but there is another very compelling message that often seems overlooked by marketing and promotion teams.

And it's a message that should be very attractive to parents.

Exercise improves mental performance. Very quickly.

It can, for example, improve your memory, increase your ability to perform complex tasks, increase your auditory and visual attention and, perhaps most significantly, reduce stress and anxiety.

According to Dr. John Ratey, author of Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Education and the Brain, "There's sort of no question about it now. The exercise itself doesn't make you smarter, but it puts the brain of the learners in the optimal position for them to learn."

For example, a recent study suggests that 30 minutes on a treadmill may improve student performance on problem-solving exercises by 10%.

I believe the mental health benefits of exercise present profound and underutilized marketing opportunities for physical activity providers.

Just imagine the taglines...

• "Improve Your Child's Test Scores"
• "Be Happier Today"
• "Feel Smarter in Just 30 Minutes"
• "Be More Productive at Work"
• "Improve Your Memory"
  

Taglines like these are aimed directly at some of the most fundamental aspirations of our culture. Yet these are benefits not generally associated with exercise. As more parents come to understand the mental health benefits of exercise, for their children and for themselves, I believe the culture of physical activity will grow exponentially.

Is your organization promoting the mental health benefits of exercise? What works?

The National Physical Activity Plan is a multi-sectoral blueprint for creating a more robust culture of physical activity. It's appropriately aspirational, but grounded in practical objectives. Much like Healthy People 2020, it's great strength is its ability to unite powerful forces of change around common goals.

But the magnitude of the project - creating a cultural shift of national proportions - can feel overwhelming. So many changes need to be made in so many places. Real, measurable progress seems difficult to identify.

But like the journey of a thousand miles that begins with a single step, maybe cultural shifts of national proportions can begin with a single county.

And that county may be Greenville, South Carolina.

The folks of Greenville have created Livewell Greenville, a partnership of dozens of public and private organizations that aims to make Greenville County a healthier place to live, work, and play.

The approach of Livewell Greenville is to not only provide educational resources about healthy living, but also to create policies, systems and environments that make the healthy choice the easy choice.

The initiative focuses on seven societal buckets: at school, before and after school, at work, at the doctor, at mealtime, around town, and "for fun."

The following Livewell Greenville goals relate to physical activity:

• Provide tools to teachers to encourage physical activity during learning and throughout the day.
• Encourage more childcare providers to serve healthy meals and snacks and offer regular structured physical activity in licensed childcare centers.
• Encourage more after school providers to serve healthy meals and snacks and offer regular structured physical activity in non-licensed after school programs.
• Incentivize after school programs and childcare centers to adopt policies that support healthy eating and active living among children.
• Increase the number of work places that adopt policies and environments that support employees in staying physically active and eating healthy, nutritious food.
• Encourage health care providers to provide patients with practical referrals for healthy eating, active living, and treatment for obesity.
• Enable residents to run errands and commute on foot, by bike, or on Greenlink.
• Enable more Greenville County children to walk to school safely.
• Encourage neighborhood groups and residents to become more involved in the transportation planning process.
• Increase safety through Park Watch programs.
• Increase access to basic recreation facilities through the development of a model Complete Parks policy.
• Increase accessibility to local parks.
• Increase awareness of local facilities where residents can play and be active.

My hope is that Livewill Greenville will inspire thousands of similar community-based efforts around the country. Surely, duplicating the initiative would not be easy, and Livewelll Greenville benefits from the talents of dedicated community champions willing to invest significant time to make the initiative meaningful, but I'm willing to bet that every community has champions who are up for the challenge. Maybe every community won't succeed, but given what's at stake, it's certainly worth a try.

To follow the progress of Livewell Greenville and learn more about their inspirational community efforts, please visit livewellgreenville.org.

What are some examples of other communities dedicated to creating a healthier place to live, work, and play?