Background
Methods
Recruitment
Initial adaptations: The FFIT for women programme
Reasons for attendance, completion rates and reasons for non-completion
Acceptability
Outcome data collection
Statistical analysis
Results
Recruitment, who was attracted and why?
Physical measures | Mean ± SD (N) |
Age (years) | 45.8 ± 7.4 (123) |
Weight (kg) | 95.3 ± 17.7 (123) |
BMI (kg/m2) | 36.6 ± 6.9 (123) |
Waist (cm) | 105.1 ± 12.4 (122) |
BP Systolic (mmHg) | 126.4 ± 17.1 (116) |
BP Diastolic (mmHg) | 83.6 ± 10.8 (116) |
Employment status | % (N) |
In paid employment or self-employed | 84.6 (104) |
Permanently unable to work | 4.1 (5) |
Retired from paid work | 2.4 (3) |
Looking after home or family | 7.3 (9) |
Other | 1.6 (2) |
Educational attainment | % (N) |
No educational qualifications | 3.3 (2) |
Standard grades or equivalent | 19.5 (24) |
Highers or equivalent | 10.6 (13) |
Vocational qualification | 10.6 (13) |
HNC/HND | 22 (27) |
First degree | 20.3 (25) |
Post-graduate qualification | 8.9 (11) |
Other | 3.3 (4) |
Missing | 1.6 (2) |
Marital Status | % (N) |
Single | 16.3 (20) |
Married | 54.5 (67) |
Separated | 1.6 (2) |
Living with someone | 17.9 (22) |
Divorced | 8.9 (11) |
Missing | 0.8 (1) |
Housing Status | % (N) |
Own outright | 17.9 (22) |
Mortgage or loan | 57.7 (71) |
Rent | 22.0 (27) |
Live rent free | 0.8 (1) |
Other | 0.8 (1) |
Missing | 0.8 (1) |
Ethnicity | % (N) |
White British | 22.8 (28) |
White Scottish | 77.2 (95) |
Attendance at home games | % (N) |
I go to them all | 27.5 (33) |
I go to most of them | 7.5 (9) |
I go to some of them | 39.2 (47) |
I don’t go to any of them | 25.8 (31) |
Attendance at away games | % (N) |
I go to them all | 1.7 (2) |
I go to most of them | 10.8 (13) |
I go to some of them | 31.7 (38) |
I don’t go to any of them | 55.8 (67) |
Watching games on TV | % (N) |
Every day | 2.5 (3) |
5–6 times a week | 5.0 (6) |
3–4 times a week | 16.7 (20) |
1–2 times a week | 25.0 (30) |
Occasionally | 45.0 (54) |
Never | 5.8 (7) |
Watching games in a pub | % (N) |
1–2 times a week | 4.2 (5) |
Occasionally | 50.0 (60) |
Never | 45.8 (55) |
Attendance, completion rates and reasons for non-completion
Acceptability
Comparison with other weight management programme - physical activity
P1: This [FFIT for Women] puts a good emphasis on how much exercise plays… in part of your diet. I found that the diet clubs just put on… kinda the main emphasis on eating right. I mean eating right, yeah, that’s good, but you still need to do the exercise. C01_12wk.
P6: I love the circuit – we all like the circuit-training. Wee bits some of us liked it, some of us didnae [didn’t]. And then we got boxercise the other night didn’t we [excited over-talk, confirming enjoyment]. C04_12wk.
P1: See because you can talk [at FFIT for Women], when you go tae [to] these classes…P2: They are funny though.P1:… [At the other classes] it’s the person up there an’ there’s twenty people in the class an’ they’re shouting at you…P4: Don’t know anybody.P1:…telling you what to do an’ you’re just doing the exercise, exercise.P4: I know, an’ they’re screaming at you.P1: Here, we did the exercises but we were chatting to each other an’ enjoy, like having a laugh, didn’t we? We had a total laugh. C03_12wk.
P8: You know, but it makes you think. Oh my God. It gies [gives] you that bit mair [more] awareness o’ that side o’ it.P6: Then you wantae walk more tae see how much you can do in a day, you know.P2: That’s it, even a wee twenty minutes/half an hour of a lunch break I was doing that as well rather than sitting on Facebook, you know, at my lunch. C02_wk12.
P1: I didn’t like the pedometer, I became obsessed with the step counting, I felt really down when I didn’t get the steps, so I took my pedometer off, because I knew I was still walking, but I just… it didn’t work for… didn’t work for me. C05_wk12.
Comparison with other weight management programmes - diet
P3: I think because it has been at our own pace an’ it’s not being dictated to.P2: Mmhmm.P3: That you can’t, you know, you’ve gottae have your two sins [local diet club term for ‘treats’] for this an’…P4: You’re not rebelling.P6: Probably enjoyed it better.P3: … three points for that.P2: Getting weighed every week.P6: Aye.P3: There’s not that worry about it that you can have the wee treats and not worry about them as much. C02_wk12.
P1: I find these slimming clubs… prey a bit on women. And I think they’re just money-making schemes so, yeah, I mean, I went to one, and I lost weight but… I found the advice I was getting from the leader of the class was just misleading, you know, that I was… I mean I’m not very tall, I’m not even, I’m 5 ft tall, but she was still telling me, “No, no, you must be… you can only be about 6 and half, 7 stone”, and I thought ‘no, that’s just too much’, and after advice from my GP, I thought ‘no, I’m not doing this anymore, I’ll find something that’s more…’, that’s proper basically, that’s not gonnae just try and say like, “If you buy these products that we sell, you’ll lose weight”, you know, I just… I don’t trust these slimming clubs at all.INT: Yeah, yeah. What about the rest of you then?P2: Well I’ve never, ever attended any slimming club, and don’t ever intend to either because… I like my food but… I feel they dictate to you what to eat, what not to eat, … and I don’t think… as you say, the money’s worth it either. So I was very pleased when I attended this [FFIT for Women], and it was the portions really that… that, you know, made me think… the size of the portions cause my husband, I think, he cooks, he’s retired and he does all the cooking, and… I was getting as big portions as him, which is about 4 times as much as I should be taking. C01_wk12.
P6: So it’s ongoing, it’s a work in progress and it’s a lifestyle change. It’s not a quick fix.P4: It’s not a diet.P6: It’s not a diet. It’s education to know how to improve your lifestyle, and to improve your life for you and your family. C04_wk12.
Appropriateness of the programme for women
P5: The actual programme, itself, was – there was nothing in it different that us women couldn’t do. I don’t think it has to be different. I think the whole nutrition side of it, whether you’re a man or a woman, is the same, you know. It doesn’t, that doesn’t change. And the same with the fitness. C04_wk12.
P8: There was wan [one] kinda time when I think we were talking aboot [about] like obstacles and what gets in your way and things like that and what makes your like reach for the chocolate or something, and somebody was like that, “When you’re on your period.”(laughter)P8: “Oh I never had any o’ this on the man’s class.” [referring to male coach’s response].(laughter)P8: Oh he [referring to male coach] just buckled. [Female coach], she was hysterical, you know. And it’s things like that, an’ it’s like things like that, you need tae put in the book for women because it is.P4: Aye.P6: Yeah, aye, it’s...P8: Everybody’s due on [due to start their period], an’ you’re like that, where’s the Cadbury’s or the Galaxy. Or whatever, you know, it’s...INT: Well that’s...P8: ... it is a thing that we dae [do]. C02_wk12.
P1: The measurement side of it, the only thing that I wish they’d done was tailored it to women. I wish they’d done your like proper waist measurement, and I wish they’d done your boob measurement, cause I would have liked to have seen how much I’d lost, cause I know my bras are smaller, and I would’ve liked to have known how much I’d lost off o’ [of] there, as opposed to like a kilt measurement, I’d like to know like my waist and boobs.P6: Maybe your hips as well.P1: Aye your hips, aye… your womanly bits. C05_wk12.
Being part of a group
P2: Cause a lot of the walks at night, you got talking to somebody different from the week before.P3: Yeah, you did.P2: It was good. Each week it was somebody different.P3: You know, it was good that way, it was good, you know, a good support from everybody, because everybody always said something that was encouraging or whatever, so it was good that way.INT: That’s good.P1: We got, I mean, we kinda used… kinda bounced our own ideas off each other as well, you know. “I’ve done this, what if you try it, see what happens”, so that’s good.P3: It’s good when it’s in a group C01_wk12.
P3: You know, and I’ve went tae [to] clubs, I’ve went tae classes there and I was, and I always felt, you know, I’m a middle-aged lady noo [now] and I always felt when I went intae [into] these classes it was full o’ young people and these exercises were so high impact an’, you know, an’ I felt like a burst couch within five minutes an’, you know, like. So I really felt like a fish oot ae [out of] water. C04_wk12.____.P4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. ‘Cause I’m fed up o’ going into the gym and seeing someone that looks like a stick… stick insect, constantly in the gym all the time, it’s like ‘Why are you here? I’m here for a reason, why are you here?’, you know, and it’s quite intimidating as well, when you go down to the swimming, and you’ve got bumps and lumps sticking out … it was nice coming here, and everybody was the same. C05_wk12.
P2: I think all being likeminded, because we obviously all do, like, you know, obviously like [club name], you know, and that’s it, I think that’s got a big thing and coming in, you know, an’ you’re sortae inspired...P3: Comfortable in your surroundings.P2: Comfortable an’ you can speak to one another.P1: But a lotta [lot of] the weeks, like especially us, we were all talking about the football when we come in on the Thursday we would all discuss last week’s game.P2: What was that like, that was terrible, you know, whatever, you know.P1: And, or whatever was in the newspapers that day (overtalk) you know, like so that broke the ice, the football thing definitely broke the ice with a lot of things ‘cause we all discussed...P3: I think having the common bond I think that’s, I think that’s a big... C04_wk12.
Potential of FFIT for women to deliver improvements in outcomes
N
| Mean Change (95% CI) |
p-value
| |
---|---|---|---|
Weight (kg) | 71 | −2.87 (−2.09, −3.65) | ≤0.001 |
BMI (kg/m2) | 71 | −1.11 (−0.79, −1.43) | ≤0.001 |
Waist (cm) | 70 | −3.84 (−2.92, −4.77) | ≤0.001 |
Systolic blood pressure (mmHg) | 66 | −8.08 (−4.11, −12.06) | ≤0.001 |
Diastolic blood pressure (mmHg) | 66 | −5.15 (−7.98, −2.32) | 0.001 |
N
| Baseline Mean (SD); Baseline Median (IQR) | Post-test Mean (SD); Post-test Median (IQR) | Mean Change (95% CI); Difference between medians (Z score) |
p-value
| |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total Physical Activity (MET mins/week) | 30 | 660 (442 to 1554) | 1800 (966 to 2817) | 1140 (−3.36) | 0.001† |
Fatty Food Score (Adapted DINE) | 64 | 29.52 (9.01) | 23.05 (7.81) | −6.47 (−8.56, −4.40) | ≤0.001 |
Sugary Food Score (Adapted DINE) | 64 | 5.11 (3.66) | 2.30 (2.79) | −2.81 (−3.77, −1.86) | ≤0.001 |
Fruit and Vegetable Score (Adapted DINE) | 64 | 2.69 (1.49) | 3.92 (1.61) | 1.23 (0.81, 1.66) | ≤0.001 |
Positive Affect (PANAS) | 70 | 16.11 (3.63) | 18.80 (3.62) | 2.69 (1.76, 3.61) | ≤0.001 |
Negative Affect (PANAS) | 70 | 9.94 (3.68) | 8.91 (2.75) | −1.03 (−1.83, −0.23) | 0.012 |
Self-Esteem (Rosenberg) | 71 | 17.66 (5.80) | 20.3 (4.80) | 2.63 (3.81, 1.46) | ≤0.001 |
Alcohol consumption (units last week) | 72 | 3 (0 to 10.75) | 0 (0 to 8.88) | 3 (−1.87) | 0.062† |