Eighty-six-year-old John Alexander leans toward the freezer door lined with hundreds of brightly colored ice creams from Alphonso Mango sorbet to Ben and Jerry’s classic Half Baked. His wrinkled hands tightly clutch his walker as his deep belly laugh echoes in the aisle. To passers-by, Alexander is picking out his favorite ice cream.
But he wasn’t just shopping.
Behind Alexander stood Yvonne Robinson, his physical therapist, who had taken him out for a physical therapy session at Evanston’s Whole Foods. He was shopping for his son’s birthday and exercising his range of motion in the ice cream aisle. Alexander has been working with Robinson, 45, twice a week for a few months.
“[Shopping] stimulates my imagination,” Alexander said. “You can also buy ice cream.”
Robinson, part of the Illinois nursing and therapy service Care in the Home, said grocery shopping helps with her patients’ movement. Oftentimes, elderly adults are scared to reach far or walk for an extended period of time as they increase chances of injury on top of already sustained ones.
For Alexander, all the colors, sounds and smells at the grocery store dispel the fear of moving.
“While he’s in the store, he completely forgets about being scared because he’s reaching for things, he’s looking for things and he’s bending down,” Robinson said.
With the U.S. population aging rapidly, the number of Americans 65 and older is projected to increase 47% by 2030. Yet, a 2024 Centers for Disease Control study found this same group to lack exercise in their daily routine, increasing chances of falling, muscle injuries and chronic health conditions like arthritis.
Creative solutions, like grocery shopping, not only get the elderly out of the house and encourage a variety of motions, but also prompt one of the simplest remedies: walking.
“Walking is the best exercise,” Robinson said. “When an individual is actively shopping, they won’t think “Oh, I’m walking too much, I’m too tired” because they are having fun picking out grocery items.”
For those 70 and older, every additional 500 steps per day was associated with 14% lower risk of heart disease or stroke, according to a CDC study.
Eighty-year-old Evanston resident Kathryn Mross intentionally walks up and down every single aisle at Costco to exercise. She recently recovered from a double knee replacement and finds grocery shopping as a way to rehabilitate.
Especially when walking becomes a harder task, being able to think about something else, like groceries, makes it easier.
When shopping, Mross is glad that she “can keep walking to the back of my mind.”
Even without needing physical therapy or rehab, 80-year-old Helen Arnolds grocery shops as exercise simply because it’s engaging.
“Walking to Whole Foods makes it interesting because it’s nice to have a destination and a purpose,” Arnolds said.
To Arnolds, shopping is also social therapy. She can sometimes spend an entire day alone at home, so going to Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s every week allows her to interact with the community.
Robinson also identifies community as a top factor why the elderly should use grocery shopping to get moving.
“This is your home, so you need to get out and see what’s going on in your community,” Robinson said. “I’m going to get my patient out as much as possible because it’s good for you mentally, not just physically.”
This is why when Robinson works with Alexander, connecting with him is also a top priority. By chatting, she helps her patient move his mind, while she herself learns new things about him every time.
“You learn that they like to spend money,” Robinson added.
Alexander lets go of his squeaky walker for a second as he turns almost 180 degrees to grab a pint of Whole Foods cookies and cream ice cream. Robinson smiles at him.
“Therapy can be cool,” Robinson said. “It just has to be creative.”
