Research Article
Attitudes of Overweight and Normal Weight Adults Regarding Exercise at a Health Club

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2008.08.005Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To compare attitudes of overweight (OW) and normal weight (NW) adults regarding health club exercise.

Design

A 46-item survey (23 pairs of attitude/value statements) measured attitudes toward exercising at a health club 30 minutes, twice a week, for a month.

Setting

Survey posted on surveymonkey.com. Respondents (men = 730, women = 822).

Main Outcome Measures

Attitudes toward exercise, exercise intent.

Analysis

t tests, Mann-Whitney rank sum, 2-way analysis of variance, Pearson rank correlations. Significance set at P < .05.

Results

More than NW, OW believe exercise improves appearance (P < .001) and self image (P < .03). OW feel more embarrassed and intimidated about exercising, exercising around young people, exercising around fit people, and about health club salespeople than NW (P < .001). OW and NW feel the same about exercising with the opposite sex, complicated exercise equipment, exercise boredom, and intention to exercise. Age rather than weight affects exercise intent. OW Caucasians (C) have less exercise intent than OW non-C. OW women are more embarrassed about exercising than NW women and OW men. The heavier the subject's weight, the lower his or her perception of health (r = -0.53, P < .001).

Conclusions and Implications

Increasing the OW person's positive beliefs while decreasing negative beliefs about health club exercise will improve his or her intent to exercise at a health club.

Introduction

The health benefits of participation in regular exercise are well known. It is also well established that regular moderate- or vigorous-intensity exercise will lower the risks and symptoms associated with the comorbidities of obesity.1, 2 Furthermore, exercise is the only factor that is consistently associated with reduced weight maintenance in the previously obese.3 On the other hand, although the health benefits of regular exercise have been well documented, only 15% of Americans get enough regular exercise to receive these health benefits,4 whereas only 30% of those trying to lose weight meet the National Institutes of Health guidelines for exercise of 300 minutes/week and only 20% of those trying to lose weight meet the Institute of Medicine exercise recommendations of 420 minutes/week.1

Thus, a paradox exists—an antidote for obesity and its comorbidities is exercise,5 but the majority of obese Americans do not exercise. The paradox becomes more interesting in light of the fact that the obese themselves recognize the importance of exercise for weight control, but they do not exercise. For example, Miller and Eggert found that 58% of overweight individuals reported that the reason they failed at past weight control attempts was that they discontinued exercise.6 Moreover, at the time of their study, only 29% of the overweight sample reported having exercised in the last 3 months, but 97% of this same sample indicated that they would be willing to exercise for 50 minutes/day, 5-6 days/week if accepted into a new weight loss program. This disconnect between past exercise behaviors and future promises to exercise remains elusive.

Another piece of the obesity/exercise paradox is the assumption that the benefits of exercise are tightly coupled to weight loss. This is an erroneous assumption in that there have been several studies showing a reduction in disease status or risk following an exercise program that did not induce weight loss.7 In addition, Blake et al have shown that adiposity does not hinder the fitness response to exercise training in the obese.8 Specifically, these investigators found that obese women who participated in a 14-week exercise program improved their aerobic fitness, muscular strength, muscular endurance, and flexibility to the same degree that normal-weight women did, in spite of the fact that the obese did not lose weight during the exercise program with no differences in exercise adherence or volume between groups.8

It seems clear, then, that the one of the most straightforward things that needs to be done to improve the health status of the overweight population is to get them to exercise. Previous work, however, has identified common barriers to regular exercise, some of which include a fear of being injured, an inability to monitor progress, and a lack of motivation, encouragement, support, companionship, and a safe exercise environment.9, 10 In the hopes of helping overweight people overcome these barriers, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has published a list of exercise recommendations, including joining a YMCA or health club.

Membership in a commercial health and fitness club could potentially offer a host of benefits that would address some of the CDC's recommendations for overcoming barriers to exercise. For example, health clubs typically have educated personnel on staff who can assist clients with exercise program design, proper equipment use, nutrition information, and weight management advice. Health clubs also provide an environment for people to exercise with other people who have similar goals. Health clubs provide a comfortable place to exercise during inclement weather, and many clubs offer a tremendous number of amenities for their members. Health clubs offer a relatively safe exercise environment, in that the staff is typically certified in cardiopulmonary resuscitation and available to monitor clients to ensure they are exercising safely.

Despite the benefits that membership in a commercial health club offers, participation at health clubs in the United States is relatively low.11 Overweight people, in particular, may find health clubs intimidating, cost prohibitive, inconvenient, nonaccommodating, and so on.12 Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify the attitudes of overweight men and women regarding regular exercise in a health club and compare these attitudes to those of normal weight individuals.

Section snippets

Design

To gain insight into what affects an individual's decision to exercise at a health club, this study used a survey instrument based on Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB).13 Briefly, the TPB proposes that human action is guided by (1) one's attitude toward the behavior in question, (2) the perceived social pressure (subjective norm) to perform the behavior, and (3) the ease or difficulty with which one can actually perform the behavior (perceived control). The combination of attitude,

Results

A total of 730 men and 822 women (n = 1,552) completed questionnaires (Table 2). Of these respondents, 64% were OW and 36% NW; 90% were Caucasian and 10% non-Caucasian; and 26% of the sample was younger than 35 years, 47% between 35 and 60 years, and 27% over 60 years of age. Eighteen percent of the sample attended a health club, whereas 82% did not; and more of those under 35 years of age attended (31%) than above the age of 35 (14%, P < .001). Fewer OW individuals (16%) attended a health club

Discussion

No study has yet identified which attitudes determine the overweight person's intent to exercise, much less at a health club, although a few studies have measured overall attitude and intent toward exercise in an attempt to validate the usefulness of a certain theory of behavior for understanding exercise intent.19, 20, 21, 22 Indeed, Boudreau and Godin have shown that the TPB is an appropriate model for understanding the determinants of motivation to be physically active in obese individuals.20

Implications for Research and Practice

Many subgroup differences in attitudes toward health club exercise were identified by this study. Since the number of non-Caucasians participating in this study was relatively small, more research to discover the attitudes of different races, ethnicities, and cultures toward health club exercise should be performed. Additional research should be conducted on individuals who were outside the reach of the current study (eg, those who declined participation or who were inaccessible). Future

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association.

References (32)

  • J.F. Sallis et al.

    Predictors of adoption and maintenance of vigorous physical activity in men and women

    Prev Med

    (1992)
  • I. Ajzen

    The Theory of Planned Behavior

    Organ Behav Hum Decis Process

    (1991)
  • B.I. Deforche et al.

    Attitude toward physical activity in normal-weight, overweight and obese adolescents

    J Adolesc Health

    (2006)
  • J. Kruger et al.

    Physical activity profiles of U.S. adults trying to lose weight: NHIS 1998

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (2005)
  • Position stand: the recommended quantity and quality of exercise for developing and maintaining cardiorespiratory and muscular fitness, and flexibility in healthy adults

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (1998)
  • W.C. Miller et al.

    Exercise in the treatment of obesity

  • Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, US Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010....
  • Miller WC. Exercise: the vaccine and antidote for obesity. In: Battle C, Riegelman R, eds. Essentials of Public Health...
  • W.C. Miller et al.

    Weight loss perceptions, characteristics, and expectations of an overweight male and female population

    Med Exerc Nutr Health

    (1992)
  • W.C. Miller

    Effectiveness of traditional dietary and exercise interventions for weight loss

    Am J Med Sports

    (2001)
  • W. Blake et al.

    Adiposity does not hinder the fitness response to exercise training in obese women

    J Sports Med Phys Fitness

    (2000)
  • J.F. Sallis et al.

    Determinants of exercise behavior

    Exerc Sport Sci Rev

    (1990)
  • International Health, Racquet, and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA). IHRSA/American Sports Data (ASD) 2005 Health Club...
  • P. Lyons et al.

    Effective health promotion and clinical care for large people

    Med Sci Sports Exerc

    (1999)
  • J. Francis et al.

    Constructing Questionnaires Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour: A Manual for Health Services Researchers

    (2004)
  • I. Ajzen et al.

    Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior

    (1980)
  • Cited by (30)

    • Physical Activity and Exercise Adherence in People With Hematologic Malignancies

      2019, Journal for Nurse Practitioners
      Citation Excerpt :

      Individual sessions may be more appropriate for people being treated for a hematologic malignancy who may be neutropenic and at risk for infection, whereas group sessions may be more appropriate for long-term survivors who are not experiencing the concomitant adverse effects of active cancer treatment.41 Eliciting feelings about exercise, particularly if the individual feels negatively about physical activity or exercise (feels intimidated about exercising; thus, does not want to exercise) is also important for identifying perceived benefits and individualizing the exercise program.42 For example, a person with a hematologic malignancy may feel a structured exercise program is too demanding but may be willing to gradually add steps to his or her daily activities.

    • Promotion of nutrition care by Australian fitness businesses: a website analysis

      2016, Public Health
      Citation Excerpt :

      Other negative outcomes could be associated with the financial loss of paying for nutrition products or services with little to no positive health effects.16 It should be recognized that most clients who attend sessions with fitness professionals want to change their lifestyle to become healthier.7 Therefore, fitness professionals, such as personal trainers, could be more supported to provide high-quality nutrition care to clients in line with the Australian Guide to Healthy Eating.

    • Development of the Barriers to Physical Activity Questionnaire for People with Mobility Impairments

      2015, Disability and Health Journal
      Citation Excerpt :

      Questionnaire items that measured multiple topics were split into separate items. For example “Lack of support from friends or family” was separated into two distinct questionnaire items: “Lack of support from friends” and “Lack of support from family.”6–9,11,18,20–58 The authors have experience promoting physical activity, measuring physical activity barriers, and developing questionnaires.

    View all citing articles on Scopus

    Continuing Education Questionnaire available at www.sne.org/ Meets Learning Need Codes for RDs and DTRs 4000, 4060, 5370, and 6010.

    View full text