Increasing Exercise Enjoyment and Outcome Expectations Among Women With Obesity

Despite decades of physical activity (PA) research on inactive, obese individuals, we have not successfully moved the needle on exercise participation in this population. A recent review aptly referred to PA recommendations among obese individuals as "the public health guideline that is (almost) entirely ignored"\[1\]. While we have previously had little understanding of why PA rates are so low in this population, Dr. Leone's research uncovered two possible explanations: (1) women with obesity are less likely to report enjoying exercise and (2) more likely than non-obese women to report exercising only when they are trying to lose weight. In order to affect change among obese women, we need interventions that not only address disparities in enjoyment and outcome expectations. Programs must also be practical and scalable; however, these types of evidence-based programs do not exist within the context that people generally exercise (e.g., community centers, gyms). We propose a novel approach to increasing exercise participation in this population by focusing on exercise enjoyment, increasing appreciation of the proximal benefits of PA rather than focusing on weight, and addressing changes to the exercise environment that make it conducive to this population. By delivering our intervention in partnership with the YMCA, we not only have the ability to make changes to a typical exercise context, but we also ensure that our findings can be used to help exercise-focused community organizations implement a scalable, research-tested program.

This is a pilot intervention study with two groups: an intervention group (targeted exercise program for women with obesity and YMCA membership) and a control group (YMCA membership only). The targeted exercise program will be delivered by a YMCA and will be evaluated by our team. The majority of women who are recruited to this study will be randomized to receive the intervention or the control condition. However, we also have a small group of women who has been serving as our community advisory committee (CAC) that will also participate in the intervention classes and receive the membership. They will serve as pilot testers for our data collection methods and provide ongoing qualitative feedback on the intervention as part of their role in the CAC. The study will take place in two phases at two different YMCAs (Ken-Ton and Independent Health) with approximately half of participants recruited for the first and the other half for the second.