Objective: Health beliefs of overweight adults who did and did not enter an exercise program were compared to identify possible factors that hamper people to increase physical exercise.
Method: Participants (n = 116, 78 women and 38 men) were overweight adults without comorbidities. Self-report instruments examined the burden of suffering, beliefs related to physical exercise and obesity, somatic complaints, and obesity-related quality of life of new participants of exercise programs versus sedentary non-exercisers.
Results: Mean BMI of exercisers was and of non-exercisers was 34.6 (7.0) and 32.8 (5.8) respectively. The exercisers were more often female, had fathers with less overweight, and considered overweight a more serious health problem. Fear of injury was higher and perceived health benefits were lower in the non-exercisers, who also more often attributed their overweight to physical causes and believed overweight to be irreversible. Body weight, age, education level, somatic complaints, and quality of life of the groups were comparable.
Conclusion: With respect to health beliefs, overweight non-exercisers reported more fear of injury and perceived their overweight as more irreversible than exercisers. Considering these factors in intervention and public health promotion may help overweight sedentary people to start physical exercise.