“I Was Having My Midlife Fat Crisis”: Exploring the Experiences and Preferences of Home-Based Exercise Programmes for Adults Living with Overweight and Obesity

Abstract

The involvement of people with lived experience in the design of exercise programmes is more likely to lead to a more needs-sensitive and population-specific intervention. There is limited evidence of the integration of people with lived experience, particularly regarding home-based exercise programmes for adults living with overweight and obesity, despite this being a population that would significantly benefit from a suitably tailored programme. Semi-structured interviews were virtually conducted to explore 20 participants’ experiences of exercising at home and their preferences for the design of future home-based exercise programmes. Codes were generated through thematic analysis, highlighting considerations such as comfort within a home-based environment, a desire for social connection, and the integration of technology. Four corresponding themes were generated, encapsulating participants’ choice reasoning for home-based exercise, difficulties of engaging in home-based exercise, undertaking and adhering to home-based exercise, and factors that constitute the perfect programme. Although the involvement of people with lived experience in research can be time-consuming, this process is fundamental to the design of an effective and efficacious programme. These findings will inform the design and development of a home-based exercise programme for adults living with overweight and obesity.

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

“…This could be undertaken at any time of the day, where in program weeks 1–9 would be 3 times per week, weeks 10–12 would be 4 times per week. To further understand the behavior of home‐based exercise, experiences and preferences of home‐based exercise were previously explored through semi‐structured interviews 11 . From this, the generated themes and codes that facilitated and impeded home‐based exercise were mapped against the COM‐B model, which can be seen in more detail in Supplementary one and the previously conducted semi‐structured interviews 11 …”

“…This included a review of relevant literature and exploring experiences and preferences of home‐based exercise for adults living with overweight or obesity through semi‐structured interviews, which have been previously reported within the literature. 11 The identified themes and codes from the interviews were mapped onto the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation‐Behavior (COM‐B) model (displayed in Figure 1A ), which informed the behavioral analysis and supported the consideration of BCTs to best encourage behavior change. This process allowed us to identify sources of behavior involved in exercise related choices specifically in adults living with overweight and obesity.…”

“…Stage one considered specific behavioral contexts of the problem, including the social and environmental context in which this behavior occurs as well as the individual, group, or population of focus. This included a review of relevant literature and exploring experiences and preferences of home‐based exercise for adults living with overweight or obesity through semi‐structured interviews, which have been previously reported within the literature 11 . The identified themes and codes from the interviews were mapped onto the Capability, Opportunity, Motivation‐Behavior (COM‐B) model (displayed in Figure 1A), which informed the behavioral analysis and supported the consideration of BCTs to best encourage behavior change.…”

“…The BCW was applied to inform the development of a home‐based exercise program for adults living with overweight and obesity. It followed the application of three important stages, as previously defined, 10 combined with evidence from current literature and qualitative data from previously conducted interviews with adults living with overweight and obesity 11 . No ethics approval was required due to the nature of this secondary data work and for the supplementary interviews, ethics approval was granted by the Coventry University Ethics Review Committee (Reference: P123487).…”

“…11 From this, the generated themes and codes that facilitated and impeded homebased exercise were mapped against the COM-B model, which can be seen in more detail in Supplementary Material one and the previously conducted semi-structured interviews. 11 Psychological capability. Both the interview data and the literature reported similar barriers to exercise.…”