2018/02/06 by Jeremy B. Yorgason, Lee N. Johnson, Melanie S. Hill +1
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Activities of daily living #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Clinical psychology #Demography #Gerontology #Health disparities and outcomes #Marital status #Medicine #Multilevel model #Multivariate analysis #Physical Activity and Health #Population #Psychiatry #Psychology
paper · doi:10.1111/fare.12307
crossref issued 2018/02/06 · crossref published 2018/02/06 · crossref published-online 2018/02/06 · openalex publication_date 2018/02/06 · crossref created 2018/02/06 · crossref published-print 2018/04/01 · crossref deposited 2023/09/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01 · crossref indexed 2026/08/06
Objective To examine daily patterns of exercise among older husbands and wives, as well as how conjoint exercise was related to daily marital functioning outcomes. Background Healthy lifestyle practices are becoming more common as people prepare to live healthily into their later years. Exercise may provide unique relationship benefits for individuals and couples. Method The sample of 191 older couples was drawn from the broader Life and Family Legacies Study, and the present study included data from across 14 days. Multivariate multilevel models were estimated in SAS using the Proc Mixed procedure to examine associations between exercise and daily positive marital events, daily negative marital events, and satisfaction with daily marital interactions. Results Individual exercise on a given day was associated with more positive marital events and higher daily marital satisfaction; patterns in these results were more consistent for wives than for husbands. Conjoint exercise on a given day was also associated with nearly all marital outcomes for both husbands and wives. Conclusion Exercise may provide unique relationship benefits for individuals and couples. Results indicated that relationships benefit from both individual and especially conjoint couple exercise. Implications Couples who exercise conjointly may experience more positive marital interactions.