“I Was Having My Midlife Fat Crisis”: Exploring the Experiences and Preferences of Home-Based Exercise Programmes for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Interview Guide Development
2.3. Data Collection
2.4. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Participant Demographics
3.2. Themes
3.2.1. Theme One: Why Choose Home-Based Exercise?
Awareness of the Benefits
“you know how important physical activity is into your daily life”.
“it was contributing towards the weight loss that I needed ‘cause that’s what the doctor said”.
“I can see and feel a noticeable difference when I’m doing it to the rest of my daily life. I can notice a difference when I’m not more to the point. But it means that I can then go on and do more activities with other people in a way that I couldn’t do before”.
Comfortable and Inclusive Environment
“The two that I use are very inclusive… so it is quite welcoming not sort of you know clear off anyone who isn’t a size eight, doesn’t look fantastic in yoga pants and look absolutely gorgeous transitioning from warrior one to warrior two”.
“That person comes here every day. He’s there with his mates, he’s doing his enormous weights. You know, here I am not doing that. And it may be silly…but it is one of those things that does affect how we do it. So it’s just finding a resolution which is the home-based exercise”.
Enjoyment of the Exercise
“If you’re not enjoying it then what’s the point. Like you could do anything and not enjoy it but if you enjoy it then you’re more motivated to do it and you’re more likely to continue doing it and get into a habit”.
Lower Activation Energy
“That also takes away one of the barriers that I believe people might see, which is getting stuff ready. The preparation is minimal if you don’t need to prepare anything”.
“I like the fact that I can do it quickly and easily and I don’t have a big activation energy to get to it…being able to pick up twenty minutes in the morning when I first get up…having that option would make me much more likely to do things versus well I can’t do an hour, so I’m not gonna do anything”.
Social Support and Those around Them
“So in the garden it may well be that the kids want to have a kick about, and then I might notice that at times I could find that hard work…any sort of activities that take place outside for me at my age are probably generated through children’s interest to do things”.
“My weight has always been an issue to me and my management of it has always been an issue to me, but I’ve got a very strong support network. My wife is fantastic, she’s the one who’s got me out this latest rut, and undoubtedly I’m gonna go like that through life”.
3.2.2. Theme Two: Home-Based Can Be Harder
Can It Really Replace My Usual Exercise?
“I want that social, that team that competitiveness. It’s a sad way of looking at it but if it’s not going to give me that, I’d rather not do it”.
“I play football and badminton sometimes, rugby at the weekend sporadically and it’s all based on social interaction. I find it much more difficult to motivate myself to do activity by myself…the action of it to actually undertake it tends to be from a social point of view”.
Don’t Know Where to Start
“You know you can be over ambitious in what you’re doing and actually end up hurting yourself and I don’t want to do that. I want to stay as healthy as I can and knowledge of exercise is not very great”.
Life Getting in the Way
“sometimes I just wanna get home and sleep…so sometimes it is quite difficult to get your head round to motivate yourself to do a workout after a long day”.
“Sometimes for me it’s just being at home. Oh I’ve got the washing up to do, I’ve got the cleaning to do”.
Physical Environment
“We don’t have very much equipment, so I was doing it with like garden things like a rake and that wasn’t really suitable either. I prefer heavy weighted workouts and we didn’t have any heavy weights”.
“I did look at it at the start of lockdown, but obviously prices just massively soared because everybody was doing it and you just couldn’t get anything ‘cause it was months away so we didn’t end up getting anything for any sort of exercise”.
The Uncontrollable Barriers
“I injured my knee at work and so therefore I couldn’t do any kind of exercise for a week”
“if I’m like having an IBS attack the last thing I want to do is get up and start doing crunches and burpees”.
“one thing that really affects me is my inability to run in awful weather conditions and that throws off my entire day. It throws off sometimes my entire planned week of exercise”.
3.2.3. Theme Three: Undertaking and Adhering to Home-Based Exercise
Community, Interactivity and Relatedness
“So even though you’re at home, you’re still talking with other people, maybe doing like a group thing together, but doing it from your own homes would be quite nice, ‘cause then it’s not just the exercise, it’s seeing your friends as well”.
“I need to find something that’s team related, and if I don’t have that, I’m not going to engage in it”.
Integration of Technology
“I am conscious of the fact that that I’m lucky enough to have access to good Wi-Fi, iPad”.
“Online you’ve gotta have a decent connection certainly at the moment, and I think if I wasn’t part of a class then I might do a week or two maybe, but it would wane you know, it would just disappear”.
“Peloton is home exercise for the rich. People can’t afford that. I can’t afford that”.
Lockdown Restrictions as a Result of COVID-19
“I suppose more recently, in lockdown you start to see the value of trying to be active wherever you can be, and grabbing moments to do it”.
“At the minute, especially during COVID I think this has been actually one of the worst times for peoples fitness and health, or it’s been one of the best times”.
More Knowledge and Guidance from a Trusted Source
“I think if people know that it’s from a trusted source people are a lot more likely to use it”.
“It would have been nicer to maybe have a personal trainer of some sort, who could have told me if my form was ok or not because even now I’m just going with the flow and hoping I’m doing it right”.
“Access to more advice from the NHS for the moment because of my disability. The access to that information is probably more restricted than it would be under normal terms”.
Source of Accountability and Motivation
“If it was something like burpees and I just couldn’t be arsed I just didn’t do it…but if obviously you’re at home there’s nobody to do that and if I tell them when I’m there that it’s making me feel sick they’ll get me to do something like squat jumps or something like that instead”.
3.2.4. Theme Four: What Makes the Perfect Programme?
Flexibility in Accessibility
“If there were pre-recorded videos and stuff, I think that would probably work best for me ‘cause it means you can do it in your own time and no one has any excuses really”.
“If I did want to do yoga in my bedroom I could but if I wanted to do it downstairs I could or like if I’m away I can do it in my room”.
Progress Monitoring and Biofeedback
“I would want to know effect essentially, is whether the exercise I was doing having a beneficial effect”.
“With the Fitbit it does reward you with little badges and achievements and you know the fact that you’ve walked the length of Italy. You’re thinking well I never knew I needed to know that but I like that. Those are definitely surprisingly encouraging”.
“Don’t ever underestimate the difference in one or two numbers for someone who’s trying to lose weight because point five of a pound or point five of a kilogram taking you from 17 stone to 16 stone 13 and a half means absolutely everything to some people”.
Relatability
“I need to feel that there’s people on the journey with me as well”.
“Everyone you see on a Les Mills video and Insanity video is shredded to hell. They all look absolutely incredible. We constantly talk in work about a person like me and being able to relate to someone”.
Variety Is Key
“I think having a variety, at least if I was like, oh, I don’t want to do an aerobic session this week, I’ve still got the other two as options, so it’s not like I’m doing no exercise that week”.
“Uh personally with me, I like the variation. So to go from light to moderate to intense, and then maybe back down again. You’re in those different zones and so you get a good feeling”.
“If I am going to exercise at home, like on a regular long-term basis, I need to feel like I’m a part of the community, and I need to feel that there’s people on the journey with me as well”.
“I think it would also be fun if you could interact with others. So I know on some platforms you can like share your achievements, can’t you? So that would be quite nice if you’re kind of doing a group thing as well, so you can all share it and celebrate together anyone’s successes”.
4. Discussion
4.1. Theme One: Why Choose Home-Based Exercise?
4.2. Theme Two: Home-Based Can Be Harder
4.3. Theme Three: Undertaking and Adhering to Home-Based Exercise
4.4. Theme Four: What Makes the Perfect Programme?
4.5. Strengths and Limitations
4.6. Direction for Future Research
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Conflicts of Interest
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Demographic | Participants, n (%) |
---|---|
Sex | |
Male | 8 (42%) |
Female | 11 (58%) |
Age (years) | |
18–24 | 4 (21%) |
25–34 | 5 (26%) |
35–44 | 2 (11%) |
45-54 | 1 (5%) |
55–64 | 5 (26%) |
65+ | 2 (11%) |
Employment Status | |
Employed | 13 (68%) |
Retired | 6 (32%) |
Primarily working from home | |
Yes | 8 (62%) |
No | 5 (38%) |
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Power, S.; Rowley, N.; Duncan, M.; Broom, D. “I Was Having My Midlife Fat Crisis”: Exploring the Experiences and Preferences of Home-Based Exercise Programmes for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19, 12831. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912831
Power S, Rowley N, Duncan M, Broom D. “I Was Having My Midlife Fat Crisis”: Exploring the Experiences and Preferences of Home-Based Exercise Programmes for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. 2022; 19(19):12831. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912831
Chicago/Turabian StylePower, Sofie, Nikita Rowley, Michael Duncan, and David Broom. 2022. "“I Was Having My Midlife Fat Crisis”: Exploring the Experiences and Preferences of Home-Based Exercise Programmes for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 19, no. 19: 12831. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph191912831