{"id":9180,"date":"2026-04-07T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/publichealth\/?p=9180"},"modified":"2026-04-07T11:41:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:41:02","slug":"healthy-aging-research-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/publichealth\/healthy-aging-research-spotlight\/","title":{"rendered":"Strength or Weight? New Research into Healthy Aging Reveals Differences for Men and Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Kinesiology faculty member Chris Cho\u00a0recently received a $2,000 award from the UWM Research Assistant Fund\u00a0to support the presentation of his ongoing research into healthy aging at the upcoming American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting\u00a0in Salt Lake City this May.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UWM Research Assistant Fund provides small grants to UWM faculty and staff to help conduct and share research and creative work. Cho\u2019s award will support travel and presentation costs for his poster, \u201cSex Differences in the Relation Between Body Habitus and Functional Mobility in Older Adults.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cho\u2019s research,\u00a0as part of a larger study from the Physical Activity and Health Research Laboratory,\u00a0examines how factors such as body size, weight distribution, age, and muscle strength influence functional mobility in older adults. Functional mobility includes everyday activities such as walking, standing up from a chair, climbing stairs, and maintaining balance\u2014skills that are critical for preserving independence and quality of life as people age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The study found that men and women appear to have different predictors of mobility and physical function later in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-key-research-findings\"><strong>Key Research Findings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>For women, age and lower-body muscle strength were the strongest predictors of mobility outcomes such as walking speed, leg strength, and endurance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After accounting for age, body habitus measures\u2014including body mass and waist circumference\u2014were generally not significant factors for women.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>For men, body habitus measures such as body mass and waist circumference were more strongly related to mobility than age or lower-body strength alone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The findings suggest that maintaining a healthy weight may be especially important for older men, while preserving lower-body strength may be more important for older women.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-why-it-matters\"><strong>Why It Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The research suggests that healthy aging strategies may be more effective when they are tailored to the different needs of men and women, rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-for-example\">For example:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Older women may benefit most from activities that maintain or build lower-body strength, such as resistance training, walking, stair climbing, and balance exercises.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Older men may benefit most from strategies focused on healthy weight management and reducing excess abdominal weight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Cho\u2019s work contributes to a growing body of research showing that sex differences play an important role in aging and mobility. By identifying the factors that most strongly influence physical function in older adults, this research may help inform future exercise programs, health interventions, and public health strategies designed to support healthy aging and independence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kinesiology faculty member Chris Cho\u00a0recently received a $2,000 award from the UWM Research Assistant Fund\u00a0to support the presentation of his ongoing research into healthy aging at the upcoming American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting\u00a0in Salt Lake City this May. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":9181,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[65,38,44,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faculty-staff","category-news","category-research","category-spotlight"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Zilber College of Public Health<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cho\u2019s research examines how factors such as body size, weight distribution, age, and muscle strength influence healthy aging.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/publichealth\/healthy-aging-research-spotlight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strength or Weight? 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