Participants’ accounts of engaging in physical activity were multifaceted and complex. Most participants discussed numerous reasons for their often extensive engagement in physical activity. Participants expressed a desire to protect their bodies, engagement, and identities; pressure to adhere to standards or meet goals; and the pleasure derived from activity, involvement, or a sense of achievement. The major inter-related themes respecting physical activity motivators, inhibitors, and experiences described by participants are summarized in Fig. 1.
Protection
Protection of a functional future
All participants described the importance of maintaining functional capacity. This was referenced repeatedly as a major component of health and a motivator of physical activity but was rarely a goal in itself. Rather, participants valued functioning because it facilitated social interactions, independence, or engagement in favorite activities:
I want to be able to play with my son, I want to be able to chase my son, he gets so excited when you go chasing after him, or when he can chase after you. (Pauline).
Participants’ worried that in the future their size might impinge on their ability to maintain engagement in favored activities, especially as they aged:
I’d fallen while walking and had a serious concussion as a result. And I was only [middle-aged] at the time I think, and thought this is old lady business and this is not acceptable. Like I can’t even walk and not fall on my head. (Amelia).
Worries that weight may be affecting their functional capacity could motivate weight loss attempts or more strenuous exercise, even amongst those identifying as more weight accepting. Among participants followed for a full year, most did sustain activity-prohibiting injuries. This may suggest that participants’ concerns over future immobility were not unwarranted. Or, efforts to forestall mobility problems, such as frequent rigorous activity, may have unintentionally contributed to inactivity-inducing injuries.
Protection from a fat future
Other participants referenced the need to not gain weight in order to be thinner and/or healthy in the future. Participants hoping for weight loss viewed physical activity as a means of controlling weight through caloric expenditure. Todd, for example, had recently achieved a significant weight loss and attributed this explicitly to remaining hyper-vigilant respecting his caloric intake and exercise-induced caloric expenditures. Like all participants trying to maintain weight loss, he was very active. He considered rectifying lack of awareness of calories as key to public health and focused strongly on an energy balance model of obesity:
I think the problem with society is they don’t know how much a calorie is, and if I was gym teacher . . . I would take all the kids to McDonalds and I would be like, “get anything you want…but you have to burn it off after”. So then you take these kids …and you literally you make them run laps until it’s gone … because society has no idea.
Despite his willpower-centric approach to weight control, Todd also expressed frustration with how little he could eat and still maintain his weight and with his weight plateaus and fluctuations. Furthermore, he referenced pleasure he derived from physical activity, independent of weight loss, and he missed the social and physical aspects of physical activity when he experienced a debilitating injury during the data collection period.
The prioritization of weight loss was one of the most changeable aspects of participants’ physical activity motivations. For some more weight-accepting participants, incidental weight loss could promote re-engagement in weight loss efforts. However, some participants became more weight-accepting over time. As participants achieved higher levels of fitness and health, with or without weight loss, a decreased focus on weight could emerge. For example, Amelia experienced only very gradual moderate weight loss but notable improvements in fitness; she underwent what she termed ‘a surrender’ by the last interview. In describing a contributor to her heightened acceptance, she described her “gym experience” and her pursuit of physical activity aims:
The people that I was working with there [fitness staff at her physical activity venue] were so health focused that that helped me to shift and learn and feel potential in being healthy at this weight without feeling like I had to change my weight.
Participants were therefore highly concerned that their futures be characterized by freedom from immobility. For some participants, there was also an explicit focus on a thin future, but this emphasis could shift with accrual of other benefits from activity.
Stigma and identity protection
Participants experienced a great deal of stigma, and their likelihood of physical activity was affected by their feelings of inclusion within particular fitness environments. Participants’ involvement in physical activity could have profound effects on their wellbeing. For example, Amelia had a negative experience with a wilderness activity group:
I’d been on [another trip] maybe 15 years ago where the hiking club actually left me on a mountain because I couldn’t keep up, and [they] said you can sit here and wait for us to come down and get you, or you can go down by yourself. But you’re not coming with us; we’re not waiting for you anymore.
Subsequent to an injury, Amelia joined a small private gym that had a major effect on her activity levels, perceived fitness, and social wellbeing. She described the degree of acceptance she felt as a larger, middle-aged woman in this locale. Her phone and home contained photos of herself and individuals she met at the gym. In participating with Amelia in one of her workouts, I was introduced to all the present employees and watched her greet a fellow middle-aged exerciser enthusiastically. She instructed me in her obviously familiar exercise regime and commented on liking her appearance in the gym mirrors.
Some participants did not find their physical venues as welcoming. Hannah, a former athlete enjoyed the exercise component of attending the gym but was weary of her visibility as a large woman:
… It’s kind of intimidating … you’re doing something that’s making your body move in all sorts of ways that is not attractive, and you feel like everyone’s going to see this. So maybe if there were group classes… you’re in a group where you’re going to have support. And then if that group were people who are …of a certain weight like you… you don’t feel like you’re the only one.
I accompanied Christine to her fitness centre. It was part of a chain and plastered with signs proclaiming a welcoming stance toward all bodies. Christine greeted her class instructor with a wide smile and wave, and the instructor described staff members’ fondness of Christine. Classmates encouraged our staying for a group fitness class and chatted with us after the class. Her feelings of approval and approbation within this context were apparent and reinforced in the interview following the interview. Despite this, Christine, who had a long-standing physical disability, expressed a wish that her fitness centre was more diverse in terms of ability status.
Overall, participants’ had varied experiences of inclusion or exclusion in physical activity contexts. Participants’ subjective interest and enjoyment in physical activity was often resilient. Participants often persisted in, or resumed activity despite negative experiences.
Pressure
Some participants described a seemingly compulsive urge to achieve or to progress in levels of fitness. Hyper-vigilance concerning ‘tracking’ activity was mentioned by a number of participants with varying views on weight and health. Some participants focused on monitoring weight, others recorded progress in fitness, and others rigorously tracked food intake, sometimes in online fitness communities. Participants were especially dedicated to trying to following evidence-based weight loss advice. The dominant paradigm underlying most weight loss messaging is the need to rigorously monitor caloric intake and expenditure [1]. For some participants, such as Rachel, this monitoring seemed to be a component of her largely empowering and pleasurable ‘health journey’. For other participants, these actions were characterized by a sense of unwilling pressure. Indeed, some participants linked their past or present focus on monitoring weight, activity, and food to disordered eating. Melissa recounted periods of what she perceived to be problematic restrictive eating and over-exercising (up to two hours per day). She described her transition to what she considered a more “natural” and “healthy” approach of engaging in physical activity that appealed to her at the moment, rather than her prior more stringent activity routines:
I just feel like going for a walk today, versus … I need … x amount of cardio and x amount of weight, so I better be at the gym and I better do this machine and that machine…
Joanne, a former martial artist, found focusing on competition and progress anxiety-provoking. She felt this approach might be hampering her weight loss goals:
I tend to be a … collector of awards in the past where I would aim for a goal and I would just keep on hammering and hammering away at it until I got something out of it. Like doing… so many miles and say if I had run two miles this week I wouldn’t allow myself to run less than two miles the following week.
Some participants, over the whole course of data collection, tried to develop new approaches to hyper-vigilance. They tried to shift to less monitoring, if they felt it was hampering their overall wellbeing or weight loss goals. Many such participants explicitly aligned with the HAES movement, often encountering its tenets during disordered eating treatment.
Other participants, worried that ‘complacence’ was damaging their weight loss efforts, tried to resume hyper-vigilance. Many participants’ described this pressure as a motivator for the type and degree of their physical activity. For some, this was a welcome source of stimulus; for others, it was experienced as a health-damaging force.
Importantly, participants’ feelings of pressure respecting fitness and weight were affected by weight and fitness changes evident over the course of data collection. Participants’ goals shifted with body and lifestyle changes, particularly with respect to fitness and activity, and this could de-centre weight loss’s value. Participants who were active throughout data collection and experienced improvements in health and/or weight loss or stabilization, often expressed a de-emphasis on weight-centric goals. These participants’ prioritization of future health, irrespective of weight loss, remained unaltered.
Pleasure and mastery
Participants described other rewards of physical activity, including enjoyment, socializing, and feelings of accomplishment. For some participants, these were pleasant by-products; for others, these rewards constituted the primary objectives for engagement. Christine described the enlivening effect of physical activity on herself and her daughter:
My daughter . . . she can be… oh, just a terrible person. Just so down on herself and down on life. And we go to that pool on Wednesday; that Wednesday night’s going to be wonderful. And me too, I have more. ..even though I get tired [at the gym], I have more energy.
Clarissa, an adamant advocate of HAES, exhibited another source of pleasure evident among participants, that of educating. I participated in a class taught by Clarissa. The confidence and enjoyment she expresses below was also evident when other participants taught me new activities:
But the thing that allows me to enjoy it the most is that I’ve been teaching for several years and I’ve had students that have been with me for several years now and I’ve watched them come to a place of comfort in their bodies. And that’s amazing and just being able to accept and not put a limitation on themselves . . . the limitations are often there because of what … It’s something we heard when we were three years old . . . and that just continues to play in our head, but through practice and you know … A practice of letting go, we can let go of some of those old tapes, right . . . That is very satisfying to me.
A sense of mastery was another enticement for engagement in physical activity. Maintaining functioning was the main aim of Rachel’s physical activity; however, she enjoyed reaching new heights of physical accomplishment:
I mean I have more like fun health goals like, you know, eventually being able to do a dead lift of my weight or squats . . . of my weight . . . And … I plan to complete a mini triathlon, a sprint triathlon this summer. . And I'm just doing that for shits and giggles.
Participants, therefore, were capable of enjoying physical activity, meeting fitness goals, and instilling skills in others. Still, participants’ enjoyment in activity was often in danger of being eclipsed by fear or achievement-based pressures. Pleasure could be overwhelmed by an anxiety-ridden or compulsive urge to meet particular standards or pre-emptively strike against a purportedly debilitating future.