Health-related quality of life, behavioral intention, and ambivalence in obese adult patients during stages of change in a healthy lifestyle/weight loss program

The obesity epidemic in the United States places an enormous financial burden on our healthcare system. Despite the abundant educational information available to the public on nutrition and exercise, the obesity epidemic continues to grow. Many behavioral intervention strategies are able to achieve short-term changes in health behaviors. However, because of lapses in health behavior, long-term benefits are often not realized. Ambivalence and behavioral intentions related to weight loss and lifestyle changes are suspected as factors influencing and individual's ability to successfully change behaviors to maintain long-term weight loss.;My study investigated relationships among health-related quality of life, attitudinal ambivalence, and behavioral intentions toward lifestyle change that may influence the deterioration of positive health behaviors as a person progresses through the stages of a weight loss/lifestyle program.;The research methodology used was a single-group repeated-measures design following 91 male and female patients who were physician-referred to an 8-week physical therapy and weight loss program. Data were collected using the following five assessment tools: SF-36 HRQL, Attitudinal Ambivalence assessment, Behavioral Intentions assessment, and Stage of Change assessment. A repeated measures ANOVA demonstrated statistically significant changes in five of the variables: body weight, HRQL, ambivalence, stage of change and program compliance (p = .0005). Correlation analyses demonstrated statistically significant negative associations between ambivalence related to a food diary and behavioral Intentions related to a food diary. Also present were statistically significant negative associations between ambivalence related to daily exercise and behavioral intentions related to daily exercise. A positive association was detected between compliance and percent change in body weight.;A negative association with a medium effect size was demonstrated between HRQL for the mental component score and ambivalence related to a food diary. A negative association was also found between the mental component score and ambivalence related to daily exercise.;My study provides evidence of associations between ambivalence and behavioral intentions corresponding to a reduction in program compliance and a concurrent reduction in the rate of weight loss during the last 2 to 4 weeks of an 8-week healthy lifestyle/weight loss program.