Table 5 Illustrations of diet, exercise and smoking as connected behaviours best tackled concurrently

No desire to replace one set of illnesses with another

12(I): It’s one thing cutting out the cigarettes to cut out heart disease, but you’re just going to kill yourself anyway if you’re eating all these fatty foods. [NQ, <3%, 6th week]

65(I): There’s no point in improving one side of your health to let the other side deteriorate. [Q, >3%, 24th week]

21(C): I don’t want to [think] I’ve done one healthy thing and then all of a sudden I’m obese. [Q, <3%, 6th week]

Difficult to separate out individual behaviour changes

2(I): I’m willing to do anything to better my life from stopping smoking and eating healthily … and getting some form of exercise – Now, the three of them go hand in hand, don’t they. [Q, <3%, 6th week]

35(C): Everything works in as one thing, you know, your not smoking, your eating healthy food, your on a control diet or whatever it is and your exercising – it’s not just four different things. [Q, <3%, 6th week]

Focus on multiple behaviours reduces focus on one alone

18(I): My daughter says ‘you don’t think it’s a bit much to focus on the two at the same time’ but I find it’s actually quite good because it takes my mind [off]. If I’m thinking about one, I’m not thinking about the other. [Q, <3%, 6th week]

23(C): I think it would take your mind off thinking about cigarettes – you’ve got something else to think about and to focus on, so you’re not going [to] be focusing on cigarettes all the time. [Q, <3%, 6th week]