The relationship of implicit health or appearance associations to explicit motives and adherence to exercise

Abstract

Background: This research examined relationships among automatically associating exercise with health, or appearance/ body shape, and explicit health, appearance, or weight motives to 1) the decision to participate in an exercise program and 2) adherence to the program. Gender was assessed as a moderator. Methods: Participants completed Go/No Go Association Tasks to measure automatic associations and the Exercise Motivations Inventory-2 at baseline, three, six, nine, and twelve months. Program adherence was recorded in terms of weeks (1 – 52). 456 participants (316 women and 140 men, 33 - 72 years; mean BMI = 29.81) participated at baseline, 270 chose to start the program, and 92 completed the program. Analysis of variance and regression models were used to test hypotheses. Findings: Men who chose to enroll had significantly higher automatic associations of exercise with appearance/body weight (p = .02) and higher explicit weight motives (p = .008) than men who did not enroll; women who enrolled had lower automatic associations with appearance/body weight than women who did not (p = .07). There were no changes in any constructs over the course of the full year-long program in men or women who completed. Automatic appearance/body weight associations (β = .227) and explicit health (β = -.166) and appearance motives (β = .215) predicted the number of weeks of participation among women. Discussion: A key finding is that automatically associating exercise with appearance/body shape influences exercise-related decisions, a relationship that likely differs between genders. This is important information for intervention efforts.