Does Lack of Confidence Make You Fat?

Women and Exercise

Recent research from the Public Health Agency of Canada asked 5,176 people how confident they were that they could exercise for half a day three or four times a week, how often they actually did work out, and how they felt about physical activity.

What they found was that a person’s belief in their own sporting abilities was highly significant in how often they worked out. And that women’s lack of belief in their physical prowess was holding them back!

Men, the researchers found, were 10% more likely to think they were physically strong enough to exercise than women were.

Also men were 40% more likely than women to go out and do some form of physical activity.

Sai Yi Pan, from the Public Health Agency of Canada, who led the study, said: “Our findings highlight the need for health promotion programs to enhance people’s confidence and motivation, as well as providing education on the health benefits of physical activity”.

Once again, if you say you can ,you can. If you say you can’t, you can’t. Both are equally true!

The research, which began in 2002 ,has just been published in the journal BMC Public Health; this link will take you to the BMC web site.