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Intuitive Eating and its Relationship with Physical Activity Motivation

Research has shown that restrictive eating, or dieting, can be devastating to one's health. A new paradigm, intuitive eating, suggests that individuals eat based off of their physiological cues, and not for emotional or social ones. To date, restrictive eating has been extensively researched, but intuitive eating has not. The main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between intuitive eating and its relationship between physical activity motivation and physical activity maintenance, using the self-determination theory.
Participants completed a survey to determine their intuitive eating level, their physical activity motivation, and their physical activity maintenance (n = 207). Linear regression analyses revealed that intuitive eaters were significantly more intrinsically motivated to engage in physical activity (p > .01). However, this did not mean that they maintained their physical activity more than non-intuitive eaters (p = .317). Further analysis explored the motivation levels in more detail, revealing a significant difference between intuitive and non-intuitive eaters between all levels of motivation but one, the identified regulation motivation level (p = .537), the highest category of extrinsic motivation in the self-determination theory continuum.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-1412
Date01 May 2009
CreatorsNielson, Amy Campbell
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu).

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