Dr.Sc.Phil, Associate Professor A.P. Maltseva¹
Dr.Hab., Professor I.N. Timoshina¹
Dr.Sc.Cult., Professor A.Y. Tikhonova^1
1Ulyanovsk State Pedagogical University named after I.N. Ulyanov, Ulyanovsk

Keywords: physical education theory and practice, healthy longevity, multidisciplinary approach, new research area, physical activity.

Background. Modern theoretical and practical developments appear to increasingly provide grounds for the active longevity and inspire the relevant natural expectations fuelled by the eternal dream of humanity about immortality. Many natural sciences have been sensitive to these expectations in their recent studies. One of the key problems of such research efforts, however, is that longevity is never unhappy and unhealthy in the collective and individual expectations whilst neither health nor happiness are the biologically guaranteed phenomena and, therefore, the active longevity centered initiatives need special contributions from not only natural but also social and humanitarian sciences.
Objective of the study was to demonstrate the need for the healhty longevity research in the physical education theory and practice being desinged on a mutidisciplinary basis.
Methods and structure of the study. We analyzed for the purposes of the study the physical education concepts with concern to healthy longevity as addressed and presented by the national and foreign study reports for the last two decades, with a special attention to the most relevant and cited publications and findings on the key issues of aging, mortality, life expectancy and longevity.
Results and discussion. Multidisciplinary research projects and approaches with contributions from many sciences (genetics, physiology, psychology, sociology, cultural science etc.) offer great benefits as far as the phenomenon of longevity in concerned. Our analysis of the longevity-related research has demonstrated a growing interest in this issue from modern psychology (including the social psychology), gerontology, medicine, sociology (and sport sociology in particular), political science (particularly in the “life and power” aspects), and cultural science (in “culturally predetermined life expectancy” etc.).
Thus an article by A. Devereux-Fitzgerald, R. Powell, A. Dewhurst, and D.P. French in the Social Science & Medicine Journal (2016) explores correlations between physical activity and healthy and happy longevity (note that faith and happiness are rather philosophical categories) [9]. The authors found that seniors tend to find joy and pleasure in social contacts that in their turn often motivate them for physical activity. Moreover, the study found that senior people often consider physical activity an effective tool to maintain their social connections. It is not unusual that doubts of senior people about their own physical capacities and the actual benefits of a reasonable physical activity were removed by their first functional and psychosocial improvements and other successes in such joint trainings. As soon as the sampled seniors realized the connection of their health progresses with the physical activity, they showed a growing commitment for the physical practices. It was also found that the growing knowledge of the own resource due to the well-designed physical trainings facilitated their competency and activity in other spheres of life. The authors conclude that commitment of the senior groups for special health events/ movement may not be guaranteed when supported by only focused campaigning to update them on the role of physical activity for healthy longevity. Much more promising in this respect are the efforts to emphasize the entertaining aspects of the habitual physical activity and its social connections related benefits – since such joy- and socialization-centered approach apparently brings fast benefits for the individual well-being.
One more article in Health Psychology Journal (2014) concludes that the individual belief in own ability to turn back to trainings, despite their irregularity and still non-perceived health benefits, was more important for the physically active lifestyle than the habit for physical practices as such [10].
Our analysis of the recent publications showed that the research community tends to increasingly tackle the longevity related issues on a multidisciplinary basis, with more and more researchers acknowledging the fact that longevity and aging process depends on multiple factors of influence. Thus a study report “Cross-Cultural Studies of Biological Aging” emphasized not only biological, but also cultural and environmental factors of influence on the aging processes [8].
One more study report identified many factors of influence on the senior people’s physical activity including the demographic, psychological, social, environmental, interference/ external pressure determinants etc.  Still underexplored on this list appear to be the genetic determinants and public policies related determinants. The study underlines the promises of an interdisciplinary research format to integrate the relevant theoretical (genetic, physiological, psychological) concepts and approaches [11].
Furthermore, V.H. Menec, S. Shooshtari, S. Nowicki and S. Fournier emphasize the importance of sociological and cultural contributions to the longevity research projects. They found that population of the most vulnerable and poor areas is much higher exposed to risks of many diseases including arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart failure, coronary heart disease, chronic lung disease, depression and stroke – than more developed nations; with the income gap particularly telling on the health standards of the 65-75 and 75+ year-olds [12].
Our analysis of the national research in the longevity related issues found the research community giving a special priority to the following aspects: medical [4], psychological [7]; socio-psychological [1]; philosophical and cultural [6]; with the healthy longevity related issues most often addressed by the national medical science and gerontology [2]; and still underexplored by the national adaptive physical education sector [3].
It may be fair to mention one more field of the interdisciplinary research at the junction of national pedagogy and psychology that self-identifies itself as a health science and even “health art’. Its proponents, however, have succeeded only in public declarations as yet and are known to erroneously see no difference between the "teacher’s service to secure students’ health" and the "self-reliant individual health protection activity’ [5].
Conclusion. Modern physical education theory and practice need to address the issues of health and happy longevity on an interdisciplinary basis to harmonically integrate a wide diversity of research projects and visions in the efforts to meet the challenges for the physical education theory and practice in this field; with every research project in this field extensively using and combining the relevant synthesizing, integrating and generalization toolkits. Health longevity research may evolve into a special field for the modern physical education theory and practice and potentially into a new science to effectively combine empirical data on the issue generated by the modern natural and social sciences.

References

1. Zotova N.K. Social and psychological aspects of longevity. Uspekhi gerontologii. 2007. v. 20. no.4. pp. 119 – 122.
2. Lebedev A.A., Puzin S.N., Potapov V.N., Shurgaya M.A. From gerontology to anti-aging medicine. Mediko-sotsialnaya ekspertiza i reabilitatsiya. no 2. pp. 4-6.
3. Ladygina E.B., Antonova A.V., Dubenskaya G.I., Ladygin B.A. Extension of active period of human life by means of adaptive motor recreation. Adaptivnaya fizicheskaya kultura. 2009. no. 4 (40). pp. 36-39.
4. Pristrom M.S., Sushinskiy V.E., Semenenkov I.I., Artyushchik V.V. Description of longevity phenomenon. Point of view. Meditsinskie novosti. 2016. no. 1.pp . 48-51.
5. Prikhoda I.V. Ideas of health creation by sophists of antiquity in modern educational practice. Vestnik Luganskogo natsionalnogo universiteta im. Tarasa Shevchenko. Lugansk: Knita, 2018. no. 4 (21): Ser. 1. Pedagogicheskie nauki. Obrazovanie. pp. 51-56.
6. Shaab K.S. Personal attitudes and guidelines as factor of longevity. Vestnik Tambovskogo universiteta. Ser. Gumanitarnye nauki. 2011. no,9 (101). pp. 289-294.
7. Shabalin V.N. Psychological basis of longevity. Fundamentalnye aspekty fizicheskogo zdorovya. 2014. no.1. pp. 3-6.
8. Cross-Cultural Studies of Biological Aging. Edited by Cynthia M. Beall. Pergamon Press, 1982.
9. Devereux-Fitzgerald A., Powell R, Dewhurst A., French D. P. The acceptability of physical activity interventions to older adults: A systematic review and meta-synthesis. Social Science & Medicine. 2016.Volume 158. P. 14 – 23. [Electronic resource]; Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.04.006 (date of access: 16.08.2019).
10. Kassavou A. , Turner A.P., Hamborg T., French D.P. Predicting maintenance of attendance at walking groups: Testing constructs from three leading maintenance theories. Health Psychology. 2014.  Volume 33. no.7. P. 752 – 756. DOI: 10.1037/hea0000015
11. Koeneman M.A., Verheijden M.W., Chinapaw M.J.M., Hopman-Rock M. Determinants of physical activity and exercise in healthy older adults: A systematic review. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2011. no. 8. P. 142. doi: 10.1186/1479-5868-8-142
12. Menec V.H., Shooshtari S., Nowicki S., Fournier S. Does the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status and health outcomes persist into very old age? A population-based study, J Aging Health.  2010. no.22.  P.27–47. doi: 10.1177/0898264309349029.

Corresponding author: angelamaltseva99@yandex.ru

Abstract
Objective of the study was to substantiate the need to raise the theory and practice of physical education focused on the improvement of healthy longevity to the meta-subject/ interdisciplinary level.
Methods and structure of the study. Definition of the concepts "physical education" and "healthy longevity"; analysis of the articles by the foreign and domestic authors devoted to the phenomenon of healthy longevity published over the past 20 years; determination of the range of the most important and most cited publications based on the results of the most significant researches in the academic fields related to the problems of aging, mortality, life expectancy and longevity.
Results of the study. The analysis of the most significant longevity-related publications revealed that this topic is of interest to representatives of psychology, gerontology, medicine, sociology, political and cultural sciences. The publications of the domestic and foreign authors devoted to the phenomenon of healthy longevity were found to contain the following scientific prospects for addressing the problem: medical, sociological, psychological, politological, philosophical, pedagogical, cultural, gerontological, genetic, physiological, as well as combinations of these approaches. As follows from the literature analysis, over the past decade, there has been a growing trend among explorers of the phenomenon of healthy longevity towards rising to the interdisciplinary level, as well as a growing number of publications, which authors acknowledge a variety of factors affecting longevity or influencing the process of people’s aging.
Conclusion. The study of healthy longevity can become a special direction in the theory and practice of physical education, a new branch of knowledge that combines the empirical data obtained by the representatives of natural and socio-humanistic sciences.