Co-Designing and Refining a Home-Based Exercise Programme for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity: Insight from People with Lived Experience

Abstract

Undertaking a home-based exercise programme should be a positive, health-enhancing lifestyle behaviour, particularly for adults living with overweight and obesity. However, exercise programmes are seldom designed in collaboration with people with lived experience, limiting adherence, efficacy, and effectiveness. Two focus groups (in-person n = 6 and virtual n = 7) were undertaken in the United Kingdom, to glean feedback and further refine a home-based exercise programme, developed from previously conducted semi-structured interviews with adults living with overweight and obesity. Both focus groups provided an opportunity for participants to discuss the proposed programme, highlighting strengths and areas for further improvement. Three key priorities were identified for consideration throughout the design process, specifically for adults living with overweight and obesity: (1) individualisation—a person-centred programme was non-negotiable; (2) motivation—integration of motivational features affected adherence and engagement; (3) more than just weight loss—consideration of other outcomes aside from solely numerical weight loss. These priorities provide direction for further refinement of the proposed home-based exercise programme, in an effort to ensure the final intervention is truly population-specific and needs-sensitive. Following completion, the programme will be assessed using a feasibility randomised controlled trial design.

Using the behavior change wheel to design a novel home‐based exercise program for adults living with overweight and obesity: Comprehensive reporting of intervention development

“…Implementing the BCW during program design has supported the research team to consider the full array of techniques contributing toward program adherence, engagement and long-term behavior change 10. The development of this complex program requires further consideration to just prescribing exercises,30,31 and the BCW prompted exploration of different techniques that could facilitate that. It provided an opportunity to deeply consider and explore less obvious design features of the home-based exercise program, to a further extent than what would have been undertaken without the application of the BCW.…”