How does social support impact body image experiences of older women in physical activity programs
Bibliographic record
Abstract
As we age, we experience physical changes that may impact body image. Older women in particular may find these changes difficult due to cultural ideals of youthfulness directed at women. This study examined social interactions and support in group physical activity and how older adult women perceive them to impact body image. Fourteen women aged 65 and older, who participated in physical activity classes at a city recreation centre, participated in a semi-structured interview. The study was guided by interpretive description methodology. Interviews and analysis were informed by social support and positive body image theories. Women reported that being in a context with a diversity of abilities and body types helped them feel comfortable with their own body. They often compared themselves to others in relation to function that helped to reframe negative thoughts and recognize their own ability. However, comparisons contributed to negative perceptions at times. Engaging in discussions about body function and health with peers often promoted positive perceptions and facilitated coping with functional or health difficulties. It was noted that the absence of discussion of appearance in these groups indirectly communicated body acceptance. Other participants communicated comfort, understanding, and acceptance through humour, demonstrating that support was available if needed, and providing empathy for common experiences. Instructors promoted positive body image by providing physical challenges, celebrating successes, and providing modifications or feedback. Findings suggest the social experiences in group exercise may support forming positive body perceptions, and reframing negative thoughts about the body among older adult women.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".