The program led to meaningful physical activity increases. Individually tailored programs to encourage lifestyle changes in seniors may be effective and applicable to health care and community settings.

We evaluated physical activity changes resulting from a six-month public health model intervention that encouraged seniors (N = 89) 62-91 years of age (mean = 76) living in two low-income congregate housing facilities to increase their physical activity by participating in existing community-based physical activity classes and programs of their choice. The program was offered to everyone regardless of their health problems. Enrollees were encouraged to adopt activities tailored to their preferences, physical abilities, health status, income, and transportation resources. Using a comparison-group design, the intervention group was more active for all comparison months of the intervention period (p values < .05). The intervention also was associated with improvements in self-esteem (p < .05), though not with an array of other measures of health-related quality-of-life. Those who adopted and maintained a new physical activity over the six-month intervention period experienced improvements in anxiety, depression, and overall psychological well-being relative to those who did not. The intervention was subsequently replicated through a senior center (N = 22). A much larger proportion of the senior center sample adopted and maintained a new activity for six months (68%) compared to the congregate facilities sample (35%), which may have been due to differences in recruitment methods and sample characteristics in the two settings. An intervention promoting increased physical activity through the use of existing community resources may help increase physical activity in older adults.

Ninety-six men and women from three age groups (17 to 29, 30 to 49, over 50) rated the physical attractiveness of 72 photographs of faces from similar age/gender categories. For all groups of subjects, perceived attractiveness declined with age of face, particularly for women's faces. In addition, most groups rated women's faces as more attractive than those of men, the exception being men under 30, who rated men higher. Overall, there was little support for the hypothesis that subjects would find others similar to themselves as most attractive, or for the sociobiological hypothesis that men would prefer younger women and women more mature men.

Health-promotion programs’ success depends on their ability to enroll representative samples of the target population, particularly those who are hard to reach and those who can benefit the most from such programs. This article evaluates enrollment bias in the recruitment process, examines the usefulness of a 2-phased recruitment strategy in enrolling representative proportions of eligible individuals in a physical-activity-promotion program for older adults, and explores predictors of enrollment. Of 1,381 randomly selected Medicare HMO members. 519 were eligible. Of these, 54% attended an informational meeting and 33% enrolled in the program. Relative to the target population, a representative proportion of women was enrolled, but those who enrolled were slightly younger. Of those who were eligible, a representative proportion of sedentary participants was recruited, those who were overweight were overrep-resented, and the oldest old, less educated, ethnic minorities, and precontem-plators of physical activity were underrepresented. Modifiable predictors of enrollment included interest in health, previous health-class attendance, and having had a physician recommend exercise.

As new multifaceted programs are developed to facilitate increased physical activity in older adults, it is increasingly important to understand how useful various program components are in achieving program goals. On concluding a community-based physical-activity-promotion program. 80 older adults (M = 74 years) completed a helpfulness survey of 12 different aspects of the program. and 20 also attended focus groups for evaluation purposes. Results indicated that personal attention from staff, an informational meeting, and telephone calls from staff were most helpful. Ratings were similar across gender, age, and income groups, as well as between those who had previously been sedentary and underactive. Compared with more educated participants, those with less education reported higher ratings for 8 of 12 program components. Results contribute to a small literature on older adults' perceptions of physical activity programs and might be useful in planning future physical activity and other health-promotion programs relying on similar components.