The new elderly/pensioners of the new century: social education and corporal memory

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to show that exercising the body as an activity of free time requires habits, attitudes to be incorporated by educational and cultural processes. The subjects of this study were senior people, over sixty, in a medium-size city in Brazil. Ten pensioners, highly educated and aging between 60 and 70, were interviewed. The study was characterized as exploratory and in-depth interviews allowed to rescue their corporal memories in their life histories. The results showed that: a) men are more active than women and the reasons are cultural resulting from household tasks division; b) the physical/sport activities performed, at school, by that population scarcely interfered in their corporal habits; c) men and women, who had the opportunity of practicing exercises or systematic sports during their lives, incorporate such attitudes in their lifestyles as leisure. Others that began physical activities late in their lives do it almost exclusively for medical recommendation and to improve their health conditions.