1. Overweight or obese (bmi≥25) Currently Employed (full time)
Motivators and barriers to engaging in healthy eating and physical activity in young adult men.
Lee Ashton 1, Melinda Hutchesson1, Megan Rollo1, Philip Morgan2 Debbe Thompson3 & Clare Collins1.
1 School of Health Sciences, University of Newcastle, Callaghan Campus, Australia; 2 School of Education, University of Newcastle, Callaghan Campus, Australia., Australia. 3Children’s Nutrition Research Centre, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA.
Background
Results
The most recent Australian Health survey[1] identified that many young men aged 18-24yrs have lifestyle related health concerns including:
48% do not meet national physical activity recommendations
97% do not consume recommended daily servings of fruit & vegetables
42% are overweight or obese
In 244 weight loss trials, within-study samples; 27% were males compared to 73% female, but this included all ages[2]
A comprehensive scoping review confirmed only 2 RCT interventions for diet and 15 RCT interventions for physical activity have been completed in exclusively young male population samples[3]
Many health-related interventions use a 'one-size fits all’ approach, failing to acknowledge the behavioural, biological and gender differences for young men[3]
Motivators to engaging in healthy eating and physical activity (Figure 1):
Preliminary results show the key motivators were similar for healthy eating and physical activity in the whole group. These common concepts included:
Improve my health and wellbeing
To feel better
Improve my body image
Improve sports performance and to get fitter
Improve weight status
Motivators for overweight/obese young men were focused around improving image and losing weight, whilst motivators for normal weight young men were centred on improving sporting performance
Barriers to engaging in healthy eating and physical activity (Figure 2):
Barriers were similar for healthy eating and physical activity in the whole group. Common concepts include:
Cost (expense of healthier foods and gym memberships, etc)
Lack of: time, skills, knowledge and motivation.
Alcohol
Work commitments
There were no distinct differences in barriers between BMI groups.
The aim of this qualitative study is to explore young men’s motivators and barriers to engaging in healthy eating and physical activity
Focus group sessions:
7 Focus group sessions in total (3-8 participants per session) lasting approximately 45 minutes.
N=42 young men age 18-25yr from Hunter region, Australia. Participant demographics are in Table 1.
Recruited from local University, technical colleges (TAFE) and community
A total of 11 questions were asked. Only the responses from 4 of the questions are presented here
Focus group questions:
Please tell me a few reasons young men like you might want to eat healthier foods?
Please tell me a few reasons why young men might not eat healthy already?
Please tell me a few reasons young men like you might want to be more physically active?
Please tell me a few reasons young men might not be physically active already?
Table 1: Demographic characteristics of participants
Analysis:
Leximancer software (UniQuest V4) analysed and grouped participant responses into common themes/concepts. Responses were analysed for whole group and by BMI
The Leximancer output (see Figures 1 & 2) includes concepts (grey coloured dots on the map). The more commonly a concept correlates within the transcripts, the larger the dot becomes, indicating greater importance of the concept
The emergent concept groups are normally referred to as themes (those in the coloured bubbles)
Leximancer allows analysis by “tags” (writing in red), in our case the tags are; motivators for healthy eating in healthy weight participants: “m_he (healthy wt)” motivators for healthy eating in overweight/obese: “m_he (obese)” motivators for physical activity in healthy weight participants: “m_pa (healthy wt)” motivators for physical activity in overweight/obese: “m_pa (obese)”. This is the same for barriers but the “m” is replaced with “b”
Aim
Methods
Demographics
Mean (SD) or n (%)
Age (year)
22.2 (2.1)
Height (cm)
179.7 (5.8)
Weight (kg)
81.2 (17.1)
BMI (kg/m2)
25.1 (5.1)
Overweight or obese (bmi≥25)
17 (40.5%)
Normal weight (BMI : )
25 (59.5%)
Student
32 (76.2%)
Currently Employed (full time)
9 (21.4%)
Unemployed
1 (2.4%)
Figure 1: Motivators to engaging in
healthy eating and physical activity
Figure 2: Barriers to engaging in
healthy eating and physical activity
Conclusion and future directions
Conclusion
It is clear that young men are motivated (albeit in different ways) to eat healthier and become more physically active but they are restricted by many lifestyle barriers (e.g. cost, lack of time, knowledge and skills etc). Future health-research should address the motivators and barriers when tailoring intervention content so that is made more relevant and appealing for young men
Future directions
Finish remaining focus groups to achieve a total of 60 young men and a robust analysis of the responses for all questions will be undertaken
An online survey will be developed to explore the responses in a larger representative sample of young men (n=300+)
Results of focus groups and online survey will inform development of a tailored healthy lifestyle program specific to the needs of young men
Acknowledgements
L. Ashton is supported by an International Postgraduate Award Scholarship; The University of Newcastle, Australia.
References
1.Australian Health Survey: First results
2.Pagoto SL, Schneider KL, Oleski JL, Luciani JM, Bodenlos JS, Whited MC: Male inclusion in randomized controlled trials of lifestyle weight loss interventions. Obesity 2012, 20(6):
3.Ashton LM, Hutchesson MJ, Rollo ME, Morgan PJ, Collins CE: A scoping review of risk behaviour interventions in young men. BMC Public Health 2014, 14(1):957.
Contact details: Lee Ashton, School of Health Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Australia. Phone: