The basis for this article is data taken from the cross-sectional
study ‘Living an Active Life’, a collaborative project by the
German universities of Heidelberg, Stuttgart and Tuebingen.
Inclusion criteria for subjects were defined as follows: (i) aged
50–70 years and (ii) residence in Baden-Wuerttemberg, a
federal state in southern Germany. Of the 10 313 randomly
selected individuals, 882 subjects were excluded according to
the following criteria: unable to speak or understand German (n = 637), dead, severely ill or senile (n = 137), away for an
extended period of time (n = 52) or hearing impaired (n = 56).
A response rate of 21.23% was achieved in the study, which
corresponded to a net sample size of 2002 persons, 982 men
and 1020 women.