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

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.