Exploring the Changing Process of Exercise Behavior in Middle-Aged Women Based on Theory of Planned Behavior

Most people are aware that obesity was caused by lack of regular exercise. If people want to control their body weight, they need to do regular exercise and have a balanced diet. Researchers found that only 28% middle-aged women did exercise. Sedentary behavior would reduce body metabolic rate and cause obesity. For women with middle-age, if they have a sedentary lifestyle and eat not healthy food, they are able to put their health at a dangerous condition. Due to aging, the body fat will be redistributed in middle-aged women. Exercise can increase middle-aged women，s physical activity, control their body weight, and decrease the risks for happening chronic diseases. Therefore, we will use Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to longitudinal explore the intentions of behavior and exercise behavior in Taiwanese middle-aged women. Based on TPB, we want to examine that women’s attitude toward exercise behavior, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control in exercise, and intentions of exercise behavior will change their regular exercise behavior because of changing the time. This is a longitudinal study. We will finish this proposal within 3 years. The study will be performed from 2015 to 2018. The participants of this study are residents in our community. The sample size is 150-200. Self-report questionnaires and measuring women’s body compositions will be used to collect data. After getting the inform consent, we do the first time data collection; and all participants will invite to participate this longitudinal follow up (the 3rd, 6th, and 9th month after the first time data collection). The mean, standard deviation and percentage will be used to analyze the distribution of study variables. We will use Pearson correlation to examine the associations among all variables. Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) will be used to explore the goodness of fit of TPB model and examine the mediators in TPB. Finally, we will use Generalized Estimating Equation (GEE) to analyze whether time changes will cause different exercise behaviors in middle-aged women.

Project ID:PC10408-1873
External Project ID:MOST104-2314-B182-062