Sport and leisure-time physical activity over the life course

Klostermann, Claudia; Lenze, Lars; Lamprecht, Markus; Nagel, Siegfried (2023). Sport and leisure-time physical activity over the life course. Current Issues in Sport Science, 8(1), 007. Bern Open Publishing 10.36950/2023.1ciss007

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It is desirable to get as many people as possible to engage in long-term
leisure-time physical activity (LTPA) due to the health-enhancing effects.
Although the proportion of individuals who are physically active in their
leisure time appears to have increased in Switzerland in the past years (e.g.,
Lamprecht et al., 2020), little is known so far about the dynamic of change in
LTPA trajectories over the life course. LTPA trajectories of 1,456 Swiss resi-
dents aged 35 to 76 years (random sampling) were reconstructed with the
help of a retrospective telephone interview (CATI method). To address the dif-
ficulties of retrospective data collection, the article presents the careful
development of the questionnaire on the basis of current evidence. The
majority of the respondents (approx. 73%) show a long-term LTPA without
dropout (dropout = LTPA less than once a week over one year and longer),
only a minority of whom (approx. 18%) took up their LTPA after the age of 20.
In addition, there is also a group with a somewhat unstable LTPA trajectory
(approx. 24%) that includes at least one dropout. For members of the latter
group, the longer the inactive episode lasted, the lower were their chances of
entering an LTPA. While the different LTPA trajectory groups differed only
slightly with regard to socioeconomic characteristics, analyses of their sport-
and physical activity-related history reveal that self-organized LTPA in child-
hood and youth may be seen as a success factor for lifelong LTPA. The pro-
portion of people practicing (long-term) LTPA is presumably overrepresented
in the sample. This limitation should be taken into account, but analyses of
possible advantageous conditions of long-term or lifelong LTPA are neverthe-
less possible. The results indicate a demand for more specific theories related
to the causality behind the observable LTPA behavior

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