Understanding Barriers Preventing Those With Limited Mobility From Obtaining Equal Access and Opportunity To Exercise and Achieve Overall Health

Barriers to access impede availing oneself of opportunities to access exercise and achieve health, and a myriad of systemic factors contribute to the barriers that exist. The lack of access and opportunnities for exercise can lead in the development of secondary conditions that further adversely impact the overall health of individuals. In addition to the physical and logistical barriers, those with mobility limitations also face both overt barriers to access such as being made to feel unwelcome due to lack of effort made to make exercise facilities and opportunities accessible and covert barriers based on subpar customer service provided to them due to a lack of understanding of how to assist them much less the legal obligation in terms of doing so. Additional research needs to be conducted to assess the extent to which barriers impeed access and opportunity to exercise: with added data, patterns can be identified that will allow the identified issues to be remedied thereby allowing those with limited mobility to reap the benefits of exercise and avoid the secondary effects of limited mobility. Solutions to these problems involve greater societal, exercise, and health facility planning to address the complete social, personal, and environmental components that impact all aspects of individual health needs