Intentions and changes in exercise and behaviour: a life-style perspective

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Abstract
Researchers of health behaviour have concentrated on social, psychological, and environmental domains instead of medical ones. Principal explanations of health behaviour include: (i) belief in the benefits of health behaviour and compliance with social norms; (ii) the economic location of a person determining his/her opportunity to maintain a healthy existence; and (iii) life-style influences on the probability of having good health habits. However, most studies are selective in their focus, which places restrictions on interpretations of the data especially when attempts are made to weigh competing explanations. Moreover, most of the findings have centred on current exercise behaviour such as frequencies of participation in sports activities. The intention and recent change in exercise behaviour are seldom explored The present research responds to these limitations through an analysis of intentions and reported improvement in exercise behaviour using a set of explanatory variables that are connected to principal theoretical approaches found in the literature. These explanations are evaluated against a life-style frame work, which is viewed as comprising components of social location (i.e. socio-economic status), location in one's life-cycle (i.e. age and marital status), as well as social network and gender.

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