| Abstract: |
Diabetes affects 18.2 million people or 6.3% of the U.S. population and is associated with significant morbidity, mortality, and health care costs. Regular physical activity is beneficial for the prevention and management of diabetes and established benefits include improvement in blood glucose control, reduction of cardiovascular risk factors, weight loss, and improvement in well-being. This article reports on a study undertaken to determine racial and ethnic variations in 23 leisure-time physical activities (LTPAs) among adults with diabetes and to assess the independent effects of activity limitations and comorbidity on racial and ethnic differences in this population. The LTPAs included walking, gardening or yard work, stretching exercise, weight lifting, jogging or running, aerobics, riding a bicycle, stair climbing, swimming, playing tennis, playing golf, bowling, playing baseball or softball, playing basketball, skiing, playing volleyball, playing soccer, and playing football. The study included 1,850 adults with diabetes who were interviewed in 1998. Overall, only 25 percent engaged in moderate or vigorous LTPA daily. This varied from 16 percent in blacks to 23 percent in Hispanics to 27 percent in whites. The major findings of this study are that levels of leisure-time physical activity are generally low across all racial/ethnic groups with diabetes, that blacks are less physically active than whites, and low levels of physical activity in black women account for essentially all of the observed racial differences between whites and blacks. 1 table. 11 references. |