While changing our diet and lifestyle habits is a common goal, these habits can be hard to change. A team in Ireland surveyed adults to understand why people change the way they eat, exercise, smoke, drink, etc.

The most surprising result in the study was that almost all (92%) respondents indicated that they were happy with their health even though half of them were overweight or obese. Other key findings include: older respondents (55+) were least likely to implement behavioral changes for health and that most respondents were motivated by health (72%) to change their lifestyle while about half (45%) were motivated by weight. Women were more likely to diet for weight concerns than were men, and peer and family members were integral to success once a person adopted lifestyle changes.

Other key findings:

People who receive advice from their doctor are often more motivated to continue with their changes (e.g. improving diet/exercise, giving up smoking, reducing alcohol etc.) than people that were motivated by other factors.

While advice from friends and family doesn’t seem to motivate people to make changes in the first place, the support from these groups is important in helping people to continue with their change.

The study looked at the reasons why people attempt weight loss. Results showed that in many cases – especially in women – people start diets to improve appearance, rather than to reduce the risk of illness. In addition, even though more than 50% of the respondents were either overweight or obese, 92% were happy with their health. It seems, then, that people’s minds have not created a strong link between obesity and serious life-threatening illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, cancer etc. This may explain why advice from a health care professional, that could bridge that gap, is particularly successful at encouraging change.

“A number of important differences between the attitudes and approaches of men and women also emerged.
Men were far more motivated to change by rational factors, such as poor medical results or advice from their doctor. Women, on the other hand, were more motivated by emotional triggers, such as not looking well in a photograph and therefore wanting to lose weight.”

“A number of key insights into consumer attitudes towards diet and exercise emerged. Overall, people view exersize as a far more positive experience than dieting. Where dieting was seen as restrictive and boring, exercise was often seen as something that could be enjoyed. This may explain why people that tried exercising were more likely to continue with it than those who tried dieting. It was also found that serial dieters (those who had tried on more than one occasion) have tried on a greater number of occasions than serial exercisers (5.00 versus 4.19).”

A full PDF of report can be found here.