Identifying the specific associations between participation in social activities and healthy lifestyle behaviours in older adults.

Objectives: To examine the longitudinal association between participation in social activities and healthy lifestyle behaviours.

Study Design: This 2-year follow-up study used data from 6168 older adults (73.5 ± 5.3 years; 49% men). We studied participation in five types of social activities at baseline: participation in volunteer, sports, hobbies, senior clubs, and neighbourhood-association groups.

Main Outcome Measures: The healthy lifestyle behaviours were physical activity (time spent walking: ≥150 min/week; or less), eating habits (dietary variety score: ≥4 points; or less), and intellectual activity (subcomponents of the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology Index of Competence: 4 points; or less).

Results: In the follow-up survey, 19% of participants were physically inactive, 53% had unfavourable eating habits, and 34% had diminished intellectual activity. Multilevel modified Poisson regression analysis showed that participation in sports groups was associated with a lower relative risk (RR) of physical inactivity (RR=0.82 [0.72, 0.93]) and unfavourable eating habits (RR=0.95 [0.90, 1.00]). Participation in hobby groups reduced the RR of unfavourable eating habits (RR=0.93 [0.90, 0.97]) and diminished intellectual activity (RR=0.90 [0.85, 0.96]). Participation in volunteering was associated with a lower RR of diminished intellectual activity (RR=0.84 [0.75, 0.95]). Relative to non-participation, participating in two or more social activities was associated with a 9% (95% CI: 0.83, 1.00) lower RR for physical inactivity, a 12% (95% CI: 0.82, 0.95) lower RR for unfavourable eating habits, and a 17% (95% CI: 0.77, 0.89) lower RR for diminished intellectual activity.

Conclusions: Both the nature and the number of social activities determine the longitudinal effects of social participation on healthy lifestyle behaviours.