This Is Healthy, Do It!
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Researchers at the University of Missouri found that adults who simply were told what to do increased their physical activity levels, while people educated with logical reasons as to why fitness is important didn’t feel very inclined to make lifestyle changes.
Just Do It
The study, featured in the American Journal of Public Health, looked at data from 358 reports and close to 100,000 participants. It found that telling people what to do (“behavioral strategies”) was much more likely to engage people in physical activities than simply giving them logical reasons as to why fitness is important for health (“cognitive strategies”).
Vicki Coon, the study’s lead scientist, said that this might be the case because we “can’t ‘think’ ourselves into being more active” – on which I disagree, because I got back into fitness and lost weight, exactly because I thought it through.
Among the methods Coon advised health care providers to employ with patients, were setting small, manageable goals, prescribing exercises and giving feedback.
Are People Sheep?
This leaves an interesting question: Do people prefer not to think for themselves? The study also found that advice given face-to-face about what to do was more successful than when given on the phone or via mail – which may leave us to assume that people are influenced by the authority of the person giving the advice.
This is without a doubt easier than using your own brain, but I so far strongly believed that having people understand the reasoning behind advice was integral.
In my opinion, if you treat things this way and as soon as you remove the authority figure that tells them how they should go about their lifestyle, people lapse back into their old behavior. You effectively make them dependent on you and that is the last thing that should happen.
Picture courtesy of “lululemon athletica“.
11 Comments
Explains a few things eh ;P
You seem to have had the same thought I had 😉
Different people are motivated in different ways, or by different things… like some people can be their own boss and others need supervision. Some people need trainers or work-out partners and others can train on their own.
Look at how many people suffer heart attacks and quickly go back to old habits… if a heart attack and near death doesn’t motivate someone to change, what will?
That is a valid question.
I read ”this is healthy, do it” and then saw the picture, hmmm….
^ Great minds think alike I guess 🙂
I think that this makes complete sense. Survival of the fittest. Those who die from heart attacks, strokes, or even a simple lack of calcium have earned it. Especially if they know better. I also am getting back into shape. I just started working out one day because I was tired of being out of shape. Besides, sheep is tasty 😀
This explains why bogus diets are selling well and making money. Not all people are sheep, but many of us are likely so.
This also explains why some people need God but I prefer not getting into this discussion 🙁
But don’t worry. People like you or Scooby are changing this.
So long as we don’t learn to think with our brain, it’s so easy to go back to old habits, in diet terminology, rebound rebound rebound…
Well, sometimes I think we, humanity, are a bit hopeless 😉
I bought the PDF(15$!) and found an interesting sentence.
“The magnitude of physical activitiy behavior change was modest. The achieved steps per day did not meet public goals of 10,000 steps per day.”
So those supervised people did have some increase but so smalllllllll! They got brain-washed and only this much!
This is so awful 🙁
Somebody needs to tell me to loose some fat then… ;p