PHYSICAL EXERCISE AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH

For individuals who are just beginning to exercise, the very unfit, th e elderly and persons suffering from psychiatric disorders, low intens ity activity has important potential psychological benefits. Several s tudies indicate that mental health can be improved by low- or moderate -intensity activity. In 2 studies it could be demonstrated that aerobi c exercise plus counselling was more effective in the treatment of dep ressive disorders than counselling alone. Cross-sectional community st udies clearly reveal that after controlling for potential sociodemogra phic and health-related confounding variables the risk of depression i s significantly higher for physically inactive individuals compared wi th regular exercisers. No final conclusions can be drawn from longitud inal field studies on the predictive value of physical activity on the degree of depressive symptoms. Several biological and psychological h ypotheses have been proposed to explain the association between physic al activity and mental health, however, there is still a lack of an in tegrated theoretical model.