Sedentary behavior is a major public health problem for African American women. A qualitative study used focus groups to explore African American women's experiences with physical activity in their daily lives. Women aged 35-50 were recruited to participate in the focus groups. Transcripts from the focus groups were coded and analyzed. African American women's facilitators of physical activity were daily routine, practical and convenient activities, personal safety, child care, weight loss, stress reduction, knowledge and commitment, enjoyment, pets, family and peer support, home and work facilities, and daylight and climate conditions. Barriers to physical activity were lack of child care, no person to exercise with, competing responsibilities, lack of space in the home, inability to use exercise facilities at work, lack of motivation, fatigue, and unsafe neighborhood. This information will provide the basis for generating new strategies to increase physical activity for African American women in the community.

Background: Over the past decade, considerable attention has been paid to accurately measuring body composition in diverse populations. Recently, the use of air-displacement plethysmography (AP) was proposed as an accurate, comfortable, and accessible method of body-composition analysis. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare measurements of percentage body fat (%BF) by AP and 2 other established techniques, hydrostatic weighing (HW) and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), in adults. Design: The sample consisted of healthy men (n = 23) and women (n = 24). %BF was measured by AP, HW, and BIA. Results: In the total group, %BF AP (25.0 ± 8.9%) was not significantly different from %BF HW (25.1 ± 7.7%) or %BF BIA (23.9 ± 7.7%), and %BF AP was significantly correlated with %BF HW (r = 0.944, P < 0.001) and with %BF BIA (r = 0.859, P < 0.01). Compared with HW, AP underestimated %BF in men (by Ϫ1.24 ± 3.12%) but overestimated %BF in women (by 1.02 ± 2.48%), indicating a significant sex effect (P < 0.05). The differences in estimation between AP and BIA and between BIA and HW were not significantly different between the sexes. Conclusion: AP is an accurate method for assessing body composition in healthy adults. Future studies should assess further the cause of the individual variations with this new method. Am J Clin Nutr 1999;69:898-903.

This article reports the development and testing of the Successful Aging Inventory (SAI). Two hundred participants completed two versions of the SAI, a Likert format and dichotomous format. To test the validity of the SAI, participants also completed the Life Satisfaction Inventory-A, Purpose in Life Test, Mastery Scale, and the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Both versions of the SAI had acceptable psychometric properties. Principal components analysis resulted in five factors for the Likert version, accounting for 62.19% of the variance. The SAI shows promise as a measure of successful aging and also has the potential to be a useful method of tracking older adults' overall progress and improvements in response to health promotion strategies. The next step is to evaluate its sensitivity and appropriateness for use with ethnic and racial minority older adults, and those with more varied health status.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the perceived benefits of and barriers to exercise of a convenience sample of older African American women in senior citizen centers in an urban area in the mid-South. This descriptive study utilized a convenience sample of older African American women over 60 years of age and examined the relationship among their current exercise levels, their perceptions regarding the importance of exercise, and the benefits of and barriers to engaging in regular exercise. The level of exercise was measured using the Exercise scale of the Health Promotion Lifestyle Profile (HPLP), the perceptions of the importance of exercise were measured by a Cantril ladder, and the benefits of and barriers to exercise were measured by the Exercise Benefits/Barriers Scale (EBBS) and one open-ended question on perceived barriers. A significant relationship was found between reported exercise levels and perceived benefits of and barriers to exercise (p < 0.001). Benefits most cited by participants reflected those categorized as life enhancing. Barriers cited most often related to exercise accessibility and availability. Results of this study support the need for community-based exercise programs for specific populations. Nursing interventions are needed that help women in general and African American women in particular to adopt exercise as a daily health-promotive activity.

Advance directives are a way to communicate the kind of care that people desire at the end of life. Recent research shows that ethnic minorities have been found to complete advance directives significantly less often than Caucasians, and no information was available regarding advance directives in the Asian Indian population. To address this shortcoming, this descriptive exploratory design sampled a community sample of 45 Asian Indian Hindus. Being female and having an individualistic decision-making style were significantly positively correlated with advance directive completion. Having strong religious affiliation and a family decision-making style were significantly negatively correlated with advance directive completion. The results of this study provide needed information regarding the Asian Indian population and how Hinduism affects advance directives.