Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

While Canadians over the age of 65 years account for less than 14 percent of Canada's population, they consume nearly 44 percent of all health care dollars. Although health deteriorates with aging, physical activity is a key health behaviour that reduces the risk of many common age-related diseases (e.g., hypertension, diabetes). Despite the many benefits, many older adults are low on physical activity. Previous research from our lab suggests that goals influence physical activity and individuals use different strategies depending on the emotions that are elicited by a goal problem. Thus, physical activity can be better understood by considering the daily life emotional experiences that problems elicit and the consequent strategies used to turn goals into actions. The objective of the proposed research is to examine the association between goals, planning, emotions, and physical activity as individuals engage in their typical daily life routines. We will use self-reported goals, planning, and emotions as well as objectively measured daily physical activity. To examine if and how daily life processes accumulate over time we will re-assess participants' health at 1 and 2 years after the study begins to see if and how daily physical activity leads to better long-term health outcomes on stress (e.g., cortisol), functional capacity (e.g., handgrip strength, mobility), and metabolic risk (e.g., blood pressure, obesity). By combining data from the time-sampling study phase with long-term health assessments we will capture the complexity inherent in physical activity and its association with goals, planning, and emotions, and link it to long-term health outcomes. The findings of this research may aid the development of physical activity intervention programs benefitting the health and longevity of older adults.