Betydelsen av målsättning och motivation för fysisk aktivitet

Sammanfattning: Despite the positive effects of physical activity in both physical and mental health, the proportion of Swedes who have a poor physical health is increasing. The aim of this research was to create knowledge according to what affects a physically active behavior. We used the motivational theory health action process approach (HAPA) and the goal setting technique SMART to find out if any of their components could predict a person’s physical activity. The population consisted of 151 Swedish-speaking persons in the age 19-64. We used a questionnaire to measure the respondent’s motivation, goal setting technique and physical activity. Of the data, a hierarchical regression analysis was performed with physical activity as a dependent variable. In step one of the analysis, the variables of HAPA were measured against physical activity. In step two we measured both HAPA and SMART against physical activity. In the first stage we found that HAPA's component coping planning (the ability to plan for setbacks in relation to people's physical activity) made a significant contribution (p<.05). In the second step we did not get any single significant predictions out of our variables. The explained variance was 14% in both stages of the analysis. Our conclusion was that HAPA can be used to predict physical activity and that the component coping planning was the most important variable. SMART did not contribute significant to predict physical activity.